- Project Name: Baker Creek Mountain Resort
- Project Location: Banff National Park
Project Challenge:
The resort is located in Banff National Park, an extremely sensitive environment with unique challenges. The resort had an existing wastewater treatment system, and limited area to expand for new infrastructure.
Environmental/Regulatory Factors:
The site is located in the park at a high elevation, which is subject to deep snow cover in the winter and extreme weather conditions. Further, work in the National Park requires advanced treatment and tough construction conditions that require coordination between the designers, engineers, Parks Canada, contractor, Owner and Operator.
Options considered:
The only practical option was the installation of secondary treatment followed by soil disposal. Trucking effluent offsite was not an option due to the site’s remote location.
Solution:
The system was designed for a flow of 37 cubic meters/day and consisted of large septic tanks, secondary treatment with Orenco AdvanTex, and soil disposal through subsurface trenches.
A portion of the disposal area was previously utilized as septic drainfield, so this material had to be excavated and removed from the site. Further, extreme care during construction was necessary to ensure the effluent disposal trenches were installed in the permeable, native soils conducive to effluent disposal.
The large septic tanks were installed during the early summer months when groundwater levels were extremely high. This led to dewatering requirements during construction that extended construction timeframes and required treatment of the dewatering waste prior to discharge.
Result/Performance Data:
The system has been operational for over one year and recent effluent sampling indicates that the discharged effluent is meeting all requirements.