Big Lakes County
Joussard Water Treatment Plant

Project Description

The Hamlet of Joussard is on the south shore of Lesser Slave Lake, approximately 335 km northwest of Edmonton. Over the past 10-years, Joussard has become a desired destination for its recreational activity and the relaxing lake life, which is enticing many people to visit and move to the area. Joussard has experienced significant development in recent years which is reflected in the average annual growth rate being nearly double the average annual growth rate for Alberta.

The water treatment plant could not sustain the increasing demands, did not have sufficient treated water storage volume for emergencies, and was struggling to treat the changing source water quality from Lesser Slave Lake.

Lesser Slave Lake is experiencing water quality changes like many of our Alberta water bodies. The Lesser Slave Watershed Council has indicated that the water quality in Lesser Slave Lake is degrading and without significant changes the water quality may continue to deteriorate. The water quality issues that have become a concern include high levels of organics and blue-green algae blooms.

In the review we found that the system was lacking redundancy, multi-barrier protection, and robustness within their treatment system. The design focused on providing redundancy and robustness to the facility. With this objective, we included:

• Upgrades to the existing intake and the addition of a new redundant intake

• Two trains of conventional treatment

• Three trains of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes

• Duty/standby pumping systems

• Backup power

Project Challenges

There were several challenges that surfaced throughout the project. Some of the project challenges encountered and overcome included:

• Planning and designing the raw water intake work

• Managing one project under two funding grants

• Environmentally sensitive project, needed to uphold fish habitat, avoiding the restricted access period, stirring up sediment

• Mitigate frac-out risk during drilling new intake line

Photos