News Release

Dartmouth Company Awarded Contract for Sludge Removal

(Tuesday, August 7/2001) -- Sludge removal operations at the Halifax Regional Municipality's Aerotech Park sewage treatment facility should be completed in about 30 days, Mayor Peter Kelly announced today.

In the meantime, the plant is accepting residential sewage from private haulers and it will be operating at full capacity during this busy summer season.

Mayor Kelly said Amber Contracting, of Dartmouth, was the successful bidder on the contract to remove the sludge from the Aerotech plant. Value of the contract is $665,850.

The Mayor said work crews are on-site today setting up equipment and the company will begin transporting the sludge this Friday. It has contracted with Fundy Composting, of Brookfield, to accept the estimated 2,000 tonnes of material. Work is expected to be completed in early September.

Mayor Kelly said "The tender for the project was awarded as quickly as possible to ensure that our environment was protected, particularly Halifax Harbour. Also, we wanted to make sure that the private haulers were inconvenienced as little as possible during the busy summer months, when many residents of HRM make arrangements to have their septic tanks pumped."

The municipality provided alternate methods to accept septic tank waste from the private haulers while the contract for the sludge build-up was being tendered.

Mayor Kelly reiterated that at no time was any serious consideration given to allowing haulers to dump residential waste materials into the Halifax Harbour.

"The harbour suggestion was a non-starter. We are committed to eliminating the dumping of all raw sewage into our harbour. As far as the sludge build-up at the plant is concerned, we acknowledged that we had a problem; we took immediate action; and now we have the solution. The Aerotech Park plant is operating, it is accepting waste from the private haulers and all of the sludge will be removed from the settling pond in approximately 30 days, " he said.

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Mayor Peter Kelly
(902) 490-4010