Moose Jaw City Council has awarded the contract to rebuild the city's Biolac lagoon ponds to Parkson Corporation at Monday night’s meeting. 

The contract is for up to a maximum of $1.535 million. Director of Operations Bevan Harlton had to increase the amount from $1.385 million at the last minute but said it is still within the budget for S3 - Wastewater Treatment Plant. 

"That request of $1.535 million is still within the allocated budget for S3 as well. It doesn’t impact any of our other initiatives which we have put forward for this year under S3," said Harlton. 

According to a report to city council during budget deliberations in December, the lagoon ponds need to be rebuilt every 15 to 20 years. 

The city moved to the Biolac lagoon system in 2009 which includes two ponds that are completely chemical-free. Parkson Corporation was the proprietor for the system. 

"It’s an open-air pond similar to our lagoons, but what it has is segments with forced air running through it and segments of it that, as a byproduct of these forced air areas, don’t have air in it. It’s just this really intense system where in the end it can do what a facultative lagoon can do in 180 days, it can do it in three days," Harlton explained. 

According to the city, there is visible wear on the Biofuser tubes and downcomer hoses, which is affecting the delivery of air to the ponds. Air leaks have also been visible in the wastewater ponds according to the report to city council. 

The city was given three options from Parkson: 

1. Have Parkson specialists do the rebuild with certified parts. 

2. The city does the rebuild with certified parts under Parkson supervision. 

3. City does the rebuilding with certified parts and no supervision. 

The original report to city council said the preference was the second option due to cost savings that could allow both ponds to be rebuilt. However, Harlton increased that amount for the contract as Parkson has indicated they are willing to work on reducing the price for the city. 

"Our preference, if we can do it, is to have this work done by Parkson because they are the specialists, and it would be our best way of ensuring that it’s done correctly," said Harlton. 

There were three objectives outlined for the water treatment plant at the end of 2023 and continuing into 2024. The first priority was to replace the classifiers on the grit building. Harlton said the classifiers have been ordered. The second objective is rebuilding the Biolac ponds and the third priority is a wastewater treatment plant condition assessment.