City, province no longer raising a stink about pace of Winnipeg's sewage treatment upgrades

The City of Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba are no longer bickering about the time it will take to complete improvements to the city's largest sewage treatment plant.

Winnipeg faces $1.8 billion worth of upgrades to the North End Water Pollution Control Centre, the largest of its three sewage treatment plants — and the last one to be improved as the result of a 2003 provincial order to reduce the nutrients the city discharges into the Lake Winnipeg watershed.

The city completed improvements at the West End sewage treatment plant a decade ago and is almost finished upgrading the South End plant.

The work required at the North End plant is more significant, as it involves improvements to the headworks and power source at the existing plant, the construction of a new facility to process biosolids from all three sewage plants, and a means of removing phosphorus and nitrogen from the North End plant's effluent stream.

In 2018, the city broke that work up into three separate projects. Late last year, the province said it would take the city too long to complete the work and demanded to see a plan to get it done more quickly.

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On Friday, Conservation and Climate Change Minister Sarah Guillemard and Mayor Brian Bowman announced the city and province are now on the same page when it comes to a plan to complete the improvements.

This includes the work itself and the possibility of removing some phosphorus from the North End plant's effluent on an interim basis, before the final work is completed. Limiting phosphorus is seen as the most effective way to reduce algae blooms in Lake Winnipeg, as blue-green algae can obtain nitrogen directly from the air.

To underscore the improved relationship between the two governments, Guillemard took the rare step — for a provincial cabinet minister — of appearing with Bowman at a city hall press conference.

Both pledged to continue to work together but said there is no funding deal between the city, province and Ottawa to complete the North End work.

Guillemard said the Progressive Conservative government will contribute, at some point.

"We would not be encouraging all levels to be working at a faster pace if we weren't prepared to come to the table," she said.

Bowman said the federal government is waiting for a formal request from the province.