A public information session was held last night for the proposed expansion, which would pump treated effluent into the Goulais River

The engineering firm overseeing a proposed wastewater treatment plant fielded numerous questions from the public during an information session held last night in Searchmont.

Searchmont Ski Resort wants the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks to issue an Environment Compliance Approval for the facility, which would pump treated sewage effluent into the Goulais River — a roughly 70-km tributary entering Lake Superior that drains approximately 2,000 square kilometres of the watershed area — if approved.

Last night, people gathered at the Searchmont Community Centre heard that a number of minor changes have been made to the design of the wastewater treatment plant by Kresin Engineering Corporation, a Sault Ste. Marie firm tasked with overseeing the project. 

“We’ve got some comments back from the public and from the MECP, and we’re taking those comments and doing some revisions to design to accommodate some small changes,” project engineer Michael Kresin told SooToday.

The following changes were laid out in a slide presentation that was shown during last night’s meeting:


Increase to influent wastewater strength
Modification of process equipment and tank sizing to accommodate revised influent loading criteria
Revision of the sequencing batch reactor system from single train to parallel trains for operational flexibility
Addition of a provision for future flow balancing
Clarification on the provision of pre-treatment screening and grit removal

It’s anticipated the design update will be completed and submitted to MECP for review in the coming weeks. The ministry will then review the application and provide comments about necessary changes or additions. 

If those concerns are adequately addressed by the resort, the ministry will issue an ECA — allowing for the project to proceed as planned.

“I think they should have a follow-up to verify some of the changes they made,” Heyden resident Alvin Olar told SooToday after the meeting.

“But it seems like it’s progressing through and they’re listening because they made some changes, so that’s positive, I think,” he said. 

A design brief from KEC says a treatment plant is required to accommodate the resort’s plans to expand — plans that include two 100-unit hotels, a new restaurant and conference room — that currently cannot be achieved due to the limitations of its existing wastewater treatment system.

According to an assimilative capacity study carried out for the project, the wastewater treatment plant “will have minimal to negligible impact to the Goulais River water quality and aquatic life.”

Area resident Jeff Hinich believes a closed-loop system, which purifies and recycles wastewater, would ultimately help protect the river. 

“I’m not an expert in those matters, but somehow if you can keep things from going into the Goulais River — either through re-pumping or trucking away — you probably would eliminate 90 per cent of the concern,” he told SooToday.

The proposed establishment of the treatment plant has also been on the radar of the Lake Superior Watershed Conservancy, an organization dedicated to protecting the watershed.

While executive director Joanie McGuffin appreciated the format of last night’s public information session, she believes officials from both the ski resort and the ministry should have been in attendance to address people’s concerns around the proposed project.

“The fellow here who’s from the engineering firm should not be taking all of this on. We want to hear from the resort,” McGuffin said following the meeting.

Attendee Robin Grande says he was “disappointed” that officials from the ski resort and the ministry were not present to answer his questions about phosphorus levels in excess effluent and how it impacts the health of the river.

“I personally don’t think that the Goulais has enough capacity for dilution, and I think they should answer those questions,” he said.

The Lake Superior Watershed Conservancy recently launched a volunteer-driven water monitoring program for the Goulais River, which isn’t currently monitored for water quality by the federal or provincial governments.

McGuffin says the organization wants to monitor six sites along the Goulais River for at least the next five years to get a “really good baseline.”

“We need to get a picture of the river’s health right now with all these health science parameters — all these things that we’re measuring — and then if changes happen, we can see those changes,” she said.

The head of the conservancy gave kudos to all the people who showed up for last night’s information session with questions surrounding the proposed project.

“I am so pleased to see so many people who are so passionately engaged in this work of water care for the Goulais,” McGuffin said.

Proponents of the wastewater treatment plant are “optimistic” that MECP could potentially approve the project as early as the spring of next year, Kresin said during the meeting.

– with files from Greg McGrath-Goudie