Technical tours

All tours are on Friday 24 September and depart from and return to Viger Terminal, Palais des congrès .

Please wear trousers and closed-in walking shoes .

The organisers reserve the right to cancel or limit attendance at any tour with monies refunded subject to minimum and maximum registration numbers .

Montréal Charles-J viagra. Des Baillets drinking water plant

Departs 09:00 and returns approx 12:30

The Charles-J . Des Baillets drinking water plant, one of the seven that Montréal has, began operations in 1978 online cialis. Today, its daily drinking water production capacity is 1,136,000 m3 (13,2 m3/s), well under its design capacity of double that figure. This plant was the first one in North America to disinfect water using ozone. The treatment system has been simplified through the excellent quality of raw water supplied by the St-Lawrence River and consists of filtration, ozonation and chlorination. A vast upgrading program is currently underway consisting of a full overhaul of the ozonation process, replacement of the chlorine gas disinfection process with an 0.8% sodium hypochlorite production process, implementation of UV disinfection and part-time filter coagulation to control spikes in the level of turbidity. All these modifications are to be completed in 2012.

Price: € 25.00 per person

Montréal Jean-R. Marcotte wastewater treatment plant

Departs 08:30 and returns approx 12:30

The Montréal wastewater treatment plant treats a volume of water representing 50% of the wastewaters treated in the Province of Québec. With a capacity of about 7.6 million cubic metres (2 billion US gallons) per day, it is currently the largest primary physicochemical treatment plant in America. Wastewater arriving at the plant via the northern interceptor, 27 metres deep, and the south-eastern interceptor, 43 metres deep, is raised to ground level at the pumping station. It should be noted that 60% of the territory is developed in a combined system. After years of analyses and experiments, a major step has been taken to improve the quality of the St-Lawrence River water with the decision to add disinfection to the treatment process. Ozonation was approved as the only appropriate technological choice to disinfect Montréal wastewater. The disinfection project is scheduled to take place over a five-year period.

Price: € 25.00 per person

Sainte-Rose drinking water plant and Centre d’interprétation de l’eau (CIEAU), Laval

Departs 13:00 and returns approx 16:30

Raw water from the Mille-Îles River runs into the Sainte-Rose drinking water treatment plant. The water is treated with aluminum sulphate before passing into dynamic settling tanks for sedimentation and filtration on sand and anthracite. Ozone destroys bacteria and viruses and eliminates undesirable tastes and odours and the water is filtered using activated carbon. It is then disinfected using chlorine and the pH is adjusted to reduce corrosion in the distribution network. Since the MilleÎles river is subject to variations in water quality and to a low minimum annual fl ow rate, making it less suitable as a drinking water source, it was decided in the early 1980s to equip the Sainte-Rose plant with a second filtration stage using biological activated carbon (BAC). These filters operate in biological mode, which means that assimilable organic matter is removed by useful bacteria attached to the activated carbon.

After this behind-the-scenes tour of the Sainte-Rose plant, you will visit the Centre d’interprétation de l’eau exhibition – a major tourist drawcard – to see how the public are educated on water issues in Québec.

Price: € 25.00 per person

Boisbriand wastewater treatment plant

Depart 13:00 and return approx 16:30

The city of Boisbriand is a suburb of Montréal that has seen rapid population growth – from 19,000 to 27,000 people – in the past 20 years. This has meant that its wastewater treatment plant needed upgrading to meet environmental requirements. The resulting treatment train consists of a biologically aerated filter for BOD, ammonia and TSS removal; high-rate ballasted flocculation for tertiary treatment of phosphorus; high-rate ballasted flocculation for secondary sludge thickening; and thermal (85° C) and vacuum sludge dewatering. This 25,000 m3/d wastewater treatment plant represents the state-of-the-art of compact and efficient wastewater treatment in the province of Québec.

Price: € 25.00 per person