North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plan Envision Advisory Services and Sustainability Management

Metro Vancouver

Transforming wastewater into resources

While the primary treatment wastewater needs of the North Shore have been served by the Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant since 1961, the federal government’s new wastewater treatment regulations and a growing population created the need for a new, secondary treatment facility.

The North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant (NSWWTP, the Project) has been in the works since 2012. Originally referred to as the Lions Gate Secondary Treatment Plant (LGSTP), the Project was developed to replace the existing Lions Gate Treatment Plant, which only offers primary treatment.

Artistic rendering of the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant, Credit: Metro Vancouver Regional District

During the Project’s design phase, stakeholders were engaged to provide input on a variety of aspects of the Project. One of the greatest success stories from the stakeholder engagement was upgrading the Project from secondary treatment to Tertiary treatment, thus the NSWWTP in its current configuration was developed.

The Project owner is Metro Vancouver, which is a federation of municipalities. The Project will be operated by the Greater Vancouver Sewerage & Drainage District (GVS&DD), one of Metro Vancouver’s four separate corporate entities. The GVS&DD is comprised of 18 municipalities, including the District of North Vancouver (DNV), where the Project is located.

The NSWWTP site is complex. It sits at the intersection of 1st Street and Pemberton Avenue in DNV and is bounded by a new vehicle and pedestrian overpass on the west and a CN Rail line to the south. The site was a former brownfield site, reclaimed through site development for this Project. The site is essentially a bridge between the heavy industrial-use lands to the south and the residential neighbourhood of Norgate to the north.

The Project team engaged with a range of audiences for feedback on the Project throughout design. Audiences included Metro Vancouver and local residents, local businesses, key interest groups, Metro Vancouver members, government agencies, and affected First Nations. In total, 95 engagement meetings and presentations took place, allowing for all participants to provide input and collaborate with the design and its impacts on the local stakeholders.

The North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant Program is located in North Vancouver, a short distance from the existing Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant (to be decommissioned when the new plant is complete)., Credit: Metro Vancouver Regional District

The outcome and overarching design philosophy for the Project was to create a facility that met the vision and goals of the local community, meaningfully improves the wellbeing of the community, creates a public destination, and inspires environmental stewardship.

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Artistic rendering of the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant, Credit: Metro Vancouver Regional District

What is the Envision™ framework?

Envision™ is a sustainability rating system and planning guide for introducing sustainability considerations into infrastructure projects. Envision™ assesses individual project performance and how effectively a project contributes to the resilience of the community it serves.

Design and construction are being developed to achieve Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold and ENVISION Gold certification standards. The plant will harvest and reuse rainwater outside the plant and will conserve and reclaim water used within the plant. The Project achieves this with the following design elements:

The Project actively reduces waste and conserves resources.
- The facility collects rainwater for outside use, filters reclaimed process water for non-potable water use, and uses ultralow-flow plumbing fixtures to reduce water consumption.
- Heat pumps extract waste heat for use in the Treatment Building and the district energy centre.
- Biogas from the wastewater treatment process generates electricity and heat.
The design is intrinsically linked to the site and its context. Public amenities across the facility are designed to share knowledge and inspire personal responsibility.
The Project optimizes energy use, uses energy-efficient exterior envelopes, combines daylight with low-energy LED fixtures, delivers heat to the District Energy System (DES), and plants the landscape with biodiverse native and adaptive species.
The green roof demonstrates best practices for reducing heat islands within the built environment and provides natural plant and animal habitat.

Following Project completion, Metro Vancouver will decommission and reclaim the existing primary plant’s site, and return the land to the Squamish Nation, on of British Columbia’s many groups Indigenous peoples.