Surrounded by the pristine nature that is Tofino, a new $77.5 million wastewater treatment plant opened Thursday. It was a long time coming and marked the largest infrastructure project in the district’s history, and will help preserve nature’s beauty here for decades to come.
“It’s a bit of a dream,” said Tofino Mayor Dan Law. “It’s designed to serve almost 10,000 people so it is a significant, significant undertaking.” Tofino has a full-time population of roughly 2,500 people, but it can swell to 7,000 people on any given day due to tourism.
“That was a huge part of choosing the process technology that we chose,” said Tofino manager of capital projects and infrastructure Simon Kirkland. “We needed to have something that was easy to maintain and susceptible to the swing in flow rates, and the more people the more solids in the sewage as well.” But the biggest benefit is to the environment.
No longer will Tofino’s sewage be ending up in the ocean. Watch the full story below: “Well, previously the sewage was being discharged into the channel, fairly deeply you know but, that was the historical method and it was just not good enough,” said Law. So now after going through the plant, the leftover biosolids will be trucked to the local landfill instead.
“Personally, I’ve been working in water treatment and wastewater treatment facilities in different capacities since I was 19 years old, so this is massive for me,” said Kirkland. CHEK Newsletter .