BioCord® Reactors are being installed in Northern Alberta this week, marking a significant milestone in a project to improve cold-weather performance for the lagoon system serving the Gift Lake Metis Settlement. BioCord is like a condominium for bacteria that is installed directly into a treatment lagoon and helps to dramatically increase the population of cold-tolerant microorganisms for BOD and ammonia removal. The simple, low-energy BioCord system increases lagoon capacity and performance without expanding the footprint, which eliminates the need for costly tanks, pumps, pipes and control equipment.

The BioCord system is designed to reduce BOD to less than 5 mg/L, ammonia to less than 1 mg/L and unionized ammonia to less than 0.1 mg/L—even when the wastewater temperature is near freezing. This easy-to-operate, in situ approach also enables the Gift Lake Metis Settlement to extend the life of its existing treatment plant to accommodate community growth and avoid the need to build a complex, costly mechanical treatment plant.

The BioCord Reactors were shipped to the site fully assembled and the installation will be completed in just a few days—a significantly faster process than post-lagoon alternatives, which can take weeks or months to install. Technicians will install nine BioCord Reactors in the third cell of the four-cell system, then add baffle curtains to direct the flow of wastewater through the media.

Once installed the compact, modular BioCord treatment cell will occupy a footprint of only 80 m², a small fraction of the total lagoon area of nearly 6,000 m², leaving considerable space for expansion to meet future treatment needs.