Region of Waterloo to host online public meeting about future of water and wastewater in Village of Wellesley

Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Village of Wellesley residents will soon have the opportunity to have their say on the future of water and wastewater.

As part of the ongoing development of a Water and Wastewater Master Plan for the Village of Wellesley, the Region of Waterloo is hosting a third online public meeting Dec. 12 at 7 p.m. The master plan, once completed, will examine how the region provides water and wastewater services to the Village of Wellesley until the year 2050.

“The master plan for water and wastewater is looking at your water and wastewater needs … for the next 26 years,” Region of Waterloo commissioner of engineering and environmental services told Wellesley council at its Nov. 26 regular meeting. “We’re forecasting out that far to see what kind of infrastructure we need to support growth in the Village of Wellesley.”

Based on conversations with Wellesley Township staff, Rose said the village’s population – currently 3,700 people – is expected to grow to 5,600 residents by 2050. In accordance with those growth projections, the Village of Wellesley’s current water and wastewater infrastructure will need to be expanded to meet the needs of village residents.

At the upcoming meeting, engineering staff from the region will review a number of options for expanding and upgrading water and wastewater infrastructure first presented during a master plan public meeting held in June. Region staff will also share their preferred options and solicit feedback from those in attendance.

“We do supply the Village of Wellesley with water from a well, so it is from groundwater and it’s not piped in from anywhere,” Rose said. “ … The work we had done up until the last public meeting was to identify alternatives to address well capacity. What that means is how much water can that well produce?”

While Rose said water conservation alone will not adequately address the village’s growth needs, there are three other options that would. They include increasing the existing well supply by exploring taking more water from other existing well sources, supplementing the water supply with a new well or wells, or supplementing the existing supply with external water sources from another drinking-water system like the one in Kitchener-Waterloo.

To address future disinfection and water-storage needs, region staff will also discuss at the meeting the need to build a new, off-site storage tank since there is currently no room on the Wellesley village pumping station property to build a new storage tank.

“We are looking at the wastewater treatment plant with respect to influent pumping needs – that’s where sewage comes into the treatment plant – the headworks – that’s where the sewage is strained … of large, bulky things that are in sewage like rags, wipes or something else that hasn’t disintegrated in the sanitary sewage system – and then secondary, tertiary treatment, sludge-holding capacity and discharge-capacity needs,” Rose said. “So, we’re looking at three different things withs respect to the wastewater-treatment needs for the future.”

Staff at the meeting will discuss the possibility of either replacing the existing pumps, equalization tank and headworks or building a new pump station and equalization tank, as well as a new headworks facility, somewhere else.

The meeting will also touch on options for addressing growth through improvements to the Firella Creek trunk sewer, as well as improvements to local sewage pipes.

For more information and to register for the Dec. 12 online public meeting, visit www.engagewr.ca/wellesleywater. Once feedback has been collected, region staff will present the preferred options for improving water and wastewater capacity in the village to council at some point early in the new year. A report on those options will be made available to the public after that.