Sanitation pipes go trenchless

RMWB Sanitary Trunks River Crossing

When you’re a small community, your wastewater treatment plant is most likely built to match. When you’re a small community and the oil sands are all around you, new development strains that infrastructure past its capacity.

That was the case in the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta. The solution was two Lift Stations, 1A and the newly built 1B. We needed to connect these stations to the existing treatment plant to meet the needs of the region.

Unfortunately, those connections needed to cross both the Snye and Athabasca rivers. There was concern that those crossings would have serious environmental impacts—so we got creative. Using a trenchless design and horizontal directional drilling, we crossed the waters and connected the lines.

On top of that, our design also planned for the addition of future developments to the south. And all throughout, we alleviated pressures on the system.