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October 20, 2000

For Jens Steenberg, no water is waste water

Jens Steenberg’s recycling device turns sewage into clean — and technically, drinkable — water.

AARON SPITZER
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — Jens Steenberg hasn’t emptied his sewage tank for a year and a half, and he’s proud of it.

Indeed, thanks to a recycling device that he thinks could revolutionize water use in the Arctic, Steenberg says he won’t have to pump out his tank for several more years.

The recycling equipment is installed in Steenberg’s bed-and-breakfast, Accomodations By the Sea — an airy, five-bathroom house built high on the bluffs overlooking Koojesse Inlet.

Set up in a utility room off the foyer of the home, the device doesn’t look like much: a two-metre wide cylindrical tank and a covered vat, plus a tangle of pipes and a few tubes and gauges.

What it is, Steenberg said, is a bio-filter. Working like an in-house septic tank, it uses naturally occuring bacteria to strain the solids out of waste water.

The liquid water that’s left behind is filtered further, then disinfected with ozone, and then piped back into the plumbing, where it’s used for washing clothes and flushing toilets.

Government permission to use the recycled water for showering is still pending, Steenberg said.

"It’s totally pure. You could even drink it, but we’re not allowed."

The whole process is organic and chemical-free. Steenberg sends samples every 10 days to a laboratory in Ottawa, where the water is tested for impurities.

So far its record has been spotless. "It’s actually turning out better than the Town water," he said.

The bio-filter was devised by a company called Creative Communities Research in Toronto. It cost Steenberg around $30,000 to purchase and install, and has been operating since his bed-and-breakfast opened in April of last year.

It’s cut his water usage by around 60 percent, in addition to nearly eliminating the need for sewer pick-up.

In the Arctic, where the price of water and sewer service are exorbitant, those kind of savings could add up.

The average cost of providing water service in Iqaluit is about 2.5 cents per litre. Recycle 40 litres of water and you’ve saved a dollar.

And in outlying communities, where water costs are nearly 5 cents per litre, recycling water would save twice as much money.

That’s why Steenberg and the president of Creative Communities Reasearch, Rolf Paloheimo, are pitching a plan to the Town of Iqaluit to try out the recycling system on a larger scale.

"We figure we can save the Town a couple million bucks a year," Steenberg said.

In a draft proposal submitted to the Town this summer, clusters of homes in Apex would be linked to a central bio-filtration system. The waste water from the homes’ toilets would be pumped to the filter, purified, and then sent back to the houses.

"We could have three or four systems like that in Apex and that would take care of all the houses," Steenberg said.

Speaking from Toronto, Paloheimo said the formal proposal to the Town is still being developed. His company would likely pay to build the system, he said, and then the Town could buy it back over time.

The system would likely pay for itself in three to five years, he said.

Matthew Hough, Iqaluit’s director of public works, said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the prospect of large-scale water recycling in Iqaluit.

"Everyone’s interested to see what the possibilities are," he said.

A preview of those possibilites will be available in Cape Dorset next month. That’s when another bio-filter designed by Creative Communties Reseach is slated to begin operating.

In Cape Dorset, 17 homes will be served by five separate bio-filters.

Mike Richards, the head of that community’s housing association, said the hamlet has high hopes for the $80,000 project.

If the cost savings end up being significant, he wouldn’t be surprised to see the technology spread throughout the community.

"I think council would be pretty aggressive about that," Richards said. "They’re pretty dilligent about trying to save money here."

"If we can cut down our water delivery by a third or a half that’s pretty substantial," he said.

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