Lakeland College Emergency Training Centre received a big infrastructure boost today (July 8) with the arrival of an onsite wastewater treatment system.
The 30 x 6.6 metre wastewater treatment unit is a great addition to the Lakeland College Emergency Training Centre.

While water used onsite during firefighter training has been recycled and reused for a number of years, this unit will clean the water before it is reused.

“Getting the water clean before we reuse it should eliminate odour problems and it will also be easier on our props and equipment,” says Kirk McInroy, technical service manager at the Emergency Training Centre.

Lakeland College received a $2.5 million grant from the Government of Alberta to purchase the system. It’s expected to take about three weeks to get the system operational at which time it will be able to clean up to 350,000 litres of water a day.

The wastewater treatment system is just the latest in a number of steps Lakeland College has taken to reduce smoke and odour at the Emergency Training Centre. The training props were all retrofitted to operate on gasoline and propane rather than only gasoline. Propane is a much cleaner burning fuel and is used during the majority of training exercises. However, the National Fire Protection Association does call for some training using flammable liquid fires so gasoline is used in these instances.