The Town of Lunenburg is still working to get its wastewater treatment plant up and running after hurricane Dorian knocked it out of commission last week.
The plant has been closed since it flooded with seawater at the height of the hurricane on Sept. 7.
Mayor Rachel Bailey said staff are moving closer to restoring the plant but the town would continue to divert unfiltered sewage into the harbour until the facility was fully operational.
“We are making progress in assessing the situation at the wastewater treatment plant and there is some good news in that there are parts of the facility that are working,” she said during an interview with The Chronicle Herald.
There is no clear timeline when the plant will be back to full capacity.
Many of the plant’s systems are still functional despite the flooding; the main controls, newly installed biofilter and aeration process are all operational.
Bailey said town staff are awaiting parts to repair the solids removal and UV disinfection processes, both of which were damaged by the flooding.
And once the repairs are complete, staff can begin slowly bringing all of the systems along, Bailey said.
“Getting back into operation mode means a controlled restart of all of our processes,” which could take several weeks.
She said wastewater pump stations would be restored one at a time to ensure each was operating properly.
