Updated water/wastewater reserve capacity highlights limited availability

By Sharon Harrison
An updated analysis prepared by municipal staff on the water and wastewater treatment uncommitted reserve capacity was shared with council at Thursday’s committee of the whole meeting. While there was much discussion around the horseshoe, no decisions were made, and council voted to simply receive the report.

A staff report from David MacPherson, the County’s manager of engineering, provided a current preliminary analysis of the remaining uncommitted hydraulic reserve capacity, with calculations made for each of the Picton and Wellington water treatment plants, and the Picton and Wellington wastewater treatment plants. These urban areas were prioritized as facing the most urgent development pressure.

It is intended the preliminary analysis will help inform future discussions on infrastructure needs, and will not only provide an analysis to council and planning staff, but also to the wider development community and the public. Adam Goheen, interim CAO, called it a point-in-time assessment, stating it was not a planning document.

REMAINING CAPACITY (UNCOMMITTED HYDRAULIC RESERVE CAPACITY) FOR EACH TREATMENT PLANT IS AS FOLLOWS (note: a dwelling unit assumes 2.4 persons per unit):

PICTON
Water treatment plant: 585 (m3/day)
Providing the equivalent of up to 1,118 available dwelling units

Wastewater treatment plant: 848 (m3/day)
Providing the equivalent of up to 1,010 available dwelling units

WELLINGTON
Water treatment plant: 116 (m3/day)
Providing the equivalent of up to 203 available dwelling units

Wastewater treatment plant: 4.1 (m3/day)
Providing the equivalent of up to 5 available dwelling units

These figures do not include active development applications that have not met capacity allocation approval requirements milestones. MacPherson reminded that approved developments require allocation in both the water and wastewater treatment plants.

“As such, the plant with the smallest uncommitted hydraulic reserve capacity will act as the limiting factor and will infer the maximum available units available for approval,” he explained.

For example, Wellington wastewater treatment plant has an uncommitted hydraulic reserve capacity of up to five available lots at 2.4 persons per unit. Therefore, the municipality could only consider a new development for connection that does not exceed five proposed lots.

Goheen explained why the information is coming forward now, where he outlined how they are preparing to re-engage council and the public and continue the conversation around the major infrastructure planning that is needed to support the current population, as well as to prepare for the future growth.

“Through this review, and recognizing that good infrastructure planning benefits from a short-, medium-, and long-term view, we’ve identified a need to update our water and wastewater capacity allocation policy,” said Goheen.

He said the document will help the municipality to understand and plan for allocation of the remaining capacity, as well as plan for future water and wastewater requirements. The goal, he said, is to better understand and better position the municipality to allocate capacity in a smart way in the future, whether that’s if there is very little capacity left or a lot, whether the County grows more slowly or more rapidly.

“We need to manage our allocation the best way possible, if we have a little or a lot, it benefits us either way.”

Councillor John Hirsch said, “We finally have an honest baseline,” where he also spoke to the Picton wastewater remaining capacity of 1,010 units.

“That is actually better than some of us thought, so the good news is we seem to have a little more capacity than the worst-case scenario that people were thinking about,” he said. “So this sets us up well for the proceeding discussions about what we are going to do and what is the timing going to be for development of new plants.”

Hirsch also noted that 700 units were reasonably close to needing allocation, and asked if council could see the lists of those developers that were close to requiring allocation, and what the timeframe is.

MacPherson confirmed there are a number of applications that are coming forward (final sub-division executed agreements, etc.), including Cold Creek, Base31 and Nicholas Street, amounting to about 700 units.

Noting that Cold Creek will be 900 units at build-out over about 15 years, Hirsch raised the point that the province expects capacity to be planned at least for a 15-year period. “Over 15 years, we are looking at a lot more units than that.”

“The developers give us signals as to what a phase would be, how many units in the phase they want to put forward,” explained Goheen, who said while the total number of units for Cold Creek is 900, that’s not what they are asking for.

“Phase one is about 185 units, and that’s what they are requesting.”

Goheen added that the Base31 apartment building will be 120 units (and is “quite imminent”), Base31 Village A (phase one) is 250 to 260 units, Wellings is about 50 units, and the Nicholas Street apartment is 100 units.

“These are ones that are not just speculators, these are developers that are really looking to get approval, and they were waiting for the results of this report because they want to move forward with their construction.”

“If we are down to about 300 units remaining in Picton, and almost nothing in Wellington, that signals to me that we need to plan and get ready for what comes after this because it takes several years to move through the planning process for the water wastewater upgrades,” Goheen said. “Today is about setting the stage for that conversation that is upcoming, and we really need to plan for the next round of units that will come after these.”

Director of development services, Cristal Laanstra, asked the broader question of, how are we going to deal with the pressures of what we are seeing in Wellington?

“We have large developers, we have people that are wanting to in-fill, we have the whole gambit of development pressures that we are wanting to look at, so this report is that baseline information that then allows us to start having those conversations.”

The calculations are an empirical summary incorporating all the existing commitments the County has currently made into its plants. However, there are many variables that could influence (reduce) the uncommitted hydraulic reserve capacity for each treatment plant, notes the report.

Those factors include the number of connected residential lots, population, damage or failure of treatment infrastructure, changes to the five-year average for daily flow, severe weather events, maintenance and upgrades to the treatment plants, number of approved unconnected lots, and effects of climate change.

“It should be noted that this analysis is essentially a snapshot in time, as there are many variables that could change the uncommitted hydraulic reserve capacity for each treatment plant,” stated MacPherson.

He said, given the age of the water and wastewater plants, safety margins also need to be included in the calculation to account for plant contingencies and redundancies and to guard against the potential to be overcommitting capacity and ensure that, as more capacity is allocated, all regulatory requirements with the treatment plants can still be met.

Given the various factors that inform the calculation, staff acknowledge that there are limitations to being able to provide an exact number, and that the numbers can change drastically, he said.

Councillor David Harrison said the biggest factor that seems to get overlooked is the actual rate of growth, where he asked if trigger points have been established.

“For each of these plants, for the capacity, I see us spending so much money on potential that might be 20 years, it might be five years, but we have no establishment of where all of a sudden we have to start scrambling the troops to build, and at the same time we know that we are going to have the income coming.”

“That’s the question of the day,” responded Goheen, who said the key for them is, what is the rate of growth?

“It factors into a whole bunch of different things, not the least of which is, how the treasurer finds the money for it which is one of our largest challenges. If money was no object, we’d probably build everything and be ready for it.”

“Our next conversation is, the what, and the when,” added Goheen.

The Niles Street property in Wellington was on the mind of councillor Corey Engelsdorfer who asked how long the municipality will be holding the 40 unit allocation set aside for that project.

“I know it’s a small number, but it’s also not insignificant given the position we are in in Wellington,” he said. “Are we going to be looking at releasing those at some point to allow for other infill?”

Goheen explained that council would have the authority to move the allocation away from that site. He also noted that they should know within the next few months whether the Wellington Storehouse Food Bank project will be a potential for development for that site

Engelsdorfer also asked about the possibility of exploring other solutions.

“In cases such as Wellington where there is significantly more water capacity than waste capacity, are we willing to look at interim solutions from developers, and they come with a plan and they want to build their own plant?” he enquired.

In response, Goheen said package-type plants could support the waste water solution, at least in the interim as a potential solution, stating that it would be a policy decision by council.

“There are a number of elements that would factor in, like who pays, does a portion of the rates then go to the developer to run the plant, who runs the plants, or do we run the plant?”

“Fundamentally, we have to decide whether it’s appropriate for us to use as a solution and to get those units built,” said Goheen. “Personally, I think we should be looking at that, at least as an interim measure, at least until a future water wastewater expansion occurs, to get those units built.”

The EV-800 water and wastewater capacity allocation policy is concurrently under review and was presented at the planning and development committee meeting on Aug. 20. It is anticipated that staff will provide a report and recommendations for a revised policy in October.

The staff report with detailed figures for each water treatment plant and wastewater treatment plant with remaining capacity, along with approved developments, can be found as part of the agenda package on the County’s website.

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Further background and procedural information relating to the water and wastewater uncommitted hydraulic reserve capacity analysis, can be found below:

Background
Providing some background on the water and wastewater systems in the County, MacPherson explained that the County maintains six independent water supply systems, and two independent wastewater treatment systems.

Staff have been preparing for large infrastructure projects related to the replacement of these systems, including completing master servicing plans and a development charges study, as well as reviewing the County’s servicing allocation policy, he noted

“Simultaneously, there are a significant number of developments within the Wellington and Picton-Hallowell service areas that are at various stages of the approval process, and that will require servicing allocation in order for the developments to proceed.”

The planning act requires that municipal decisions affecting planning matters be consistent with the provincial policy statement, and that municipalities shall provide:
To provide for an appropriate range and mix of housing options and densities required to meet projected requirements of current and future residents of the regional market area, planning authorities shall:
(a) maintain at all times the ability to accommodate residential growth for a minimum of 15 years through lands which are designated and available for residential development; and
(b) maintain at all times where new development is to occur, lands with servicing capacity sufficient to provide at least a three-year supply of residential units available through lands suitably zoned, including units in draft approved or registered plans.

Procedure
The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) procedure was used for its calculations. The MECP is the regulatory agency who is responsible for facilitating and promoting compliance with the Environmental Protection Act, the Ontario Water Resources Act, and regulations enacted under those statutes.

The procedure says:

“Plant performance and hydraulic capacity should be closely related to municipal growth management objectives in order to produce environmentally sound decisions regarding servicing. Municipalities should recognize that plant expansion or upgrades typically require a minimum of three to five years to develop and should therefore plan for their long-term development needs accordingly.”

Further, it says, municipalities should not recommend approval, and approval authorities should not consider approval, for development proposals if the uncommitted reserve capacity calculated had not been prepared and submitted.

The EV-800 Water and Wastewater Capacity Allocation Policy is the policy that establishes criteria for when servicing allocation is committed to a specific development.

The policy provides direction in the process of granting water and wastewater treatment plant capacity allocation.

“The policy expresses that the County supports the phased expansion of its water or wastewater treatment plants in a manner that provides capacity based on prudent fiscal management, future development needs and anticipated consumption demand, not on the basis of long-term maximum theoretical demands.”

It further states that the policy specifically prohibits water and wastewater treatment plant capacity from being allocated unless there is, or will be, sufficient uncommitted hydraulic capacity reasonably available at the water or wastewater treatment plants.