Listen to this article
Estimated 5 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.
Temperatures are dropping and snow is falling at Searchmont Ski Resort, but a proposed water treatment project at the hill just north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. has some local residents fired up.
The owners of Searchmont — American-based Wisconsin Resorts Inc. — are waiting for the province to approve the construction of an on-site sewage treatment plant.
As the hill looks to expand its operations, which could mean additional hotels and restaurants, Searchmont says the facility would be necessary to keep up with current and future infrastructure desires.
If approved by the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks, the wastewater plant would send treated sewage effluent into the Goulais River.
Service to other businesses or nearby homes is not included in the application.
Covering roughly 2,000 square kilometres, the Goulais River runs from the Algoma highlands into Goulais Bay and Lake Superior. It’s home to an assortment of fish and wildlife, most notably sturgeon, brook trout and wood turtles.
Kresin Engineering Corporation, a Sault-based firm responsible for the project, says the new system would treat and disinfect wastewater to meet ministry requirements before pumping treated water into the river system.
But some people who live nearby are skeptical.
“I don’t trust the government to keep an eye on it. I think it will pollute the river,” Liz Marion told CBC, whose family has lived on Goulais River for generations.
Goulais River near Kirby’s Corner. (Les Leclair/supplied)
Earlier this year, Kresin Engineering released its “assimilative capacity study,” which evaluated elements that can be of concern, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and other potentially toxic contaminants.
Wayne Parker, a University of Waterloo professor with years of expertise in sewage treatment, read the report and was satisfied with the findings.
He said the proposed plant itself has a “fairly traditional” design that is in use in many other parts of the province and beyond.
“If appropriately treated, it should be fine,” Parker said. “I see there were some recommendations that came out of that study that would presumably go into the design of the sewage treatment facility.”
However, Parker noted that the technology isn’t 100 per cent risk free when it comes to environmental impacts. But neither is the current septic sysyem Searchmont has been using, he said.
“If [the current system] is near or at its capacity, or over its existing capacity, there is the potential for environmental effects from the current technology.”
The idea of any risks at all raises red flags for Joanie McGuffin, the executive director of the Lake Superior Watershed Conservancy who enjoys kayaking along the Goulais River every year.
She believes if anything were to go wrong with the proposed sewage plant, then Goulais River and the breadth of species that rely on it could be placed under tremendous threat.
“It’s really scary for the future,” she said. “We have a provincial government who is doing a lot of things to undermine a lot of environmental protections that have taken decades to set into place. If we just let development go ahead, it’s costing us all in the long run.”
“We all know what phosphorus does — we’ve seen what it does in the Great Lakes with algae blooms. We don’t want to see that on Goulais Bay, but that’s what we’re going to get faced with if we don’t pay attention to what’s going into these waters.”
For the ski resort, a sewage treatment plant could be its ticket to expanding operations and boosting revenue streams.
Searchmont general manager Kim Burkhardt told CBC their engineers considered various alternatives, but that the proposal as it stands today emerged as the only reasonable fit.
“We’re looking to grow and make this an amazing hill and to add amenities, and we’re just not able to do that until we get that sewage treatment plant,” she said.
Kim Burkhardt, general manager of Searchmont Ski Resort, says the wastewater facility is imperative for future operations. (Alex Flood/CBC)
Hundreds of people who live along or nearby the river system have joined a Facebook group called “We Must Guard The Goulais River.” There, locals have been expressing their opinions and concerns on the proposal.
Marion and her husband have long enjoyed fishing, kayaking and swimming in the river. But she finds taking part in those hobbies difficult to imagine if the plant is built.
“I don’t want to go into the river with the thought there’s sewage running down the river,” she said. “There’s so many of us along the river — we’re all going to be affected.”
The public comment period for the proposal, which was initially scheduled to end last month, has been extended to January 12, 2025.
Timelines for the wastewater project haven’t been determined as the application is currently under review by the ministry.