February 12, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Bruderheim plans celebration
Fort Saskatchewan Record
The town of Bruderheim is shooting for a gold standard with its Family Day activities on Feb. 21. “Over the years, Family Day has become quite a big event …

Agencies challenge people to unplug for a day
Fort Saskatchewan Record
The idea, said Bruderheim Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) director … Each municipality will have Family Day events, with Bruderheim hosting

Posted in Town of Bruderheim | Print | No Comments »

February 5, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

The Globe and Mail

A little town on the oil sands

GORDON PITTS

Chipman, Alta.— From Saturday’s Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Feb. 04, 2011 6:30PM EST

Last updated Friday, Feb. 04, 2011 7:35PM EST

Time moves slowly in Chipman, Alta., where the ancient hotel jukebox plays Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar as old guys talk over beers about what it’s like working in Fort Mac at 40-below. You can order a hefty helping of burger and fries with a Coke and still get a fistful of change from a $10 bill….

As Alberta braces for the next wave of growth, it is hoping for a sustainable future, and nowhere more than in little towns on the periphery that tried to catch the tail of the last boom, before the global economy suffered a stroke. Now in Chipman, and nearby places like Lamont, Bruderheim and Redwater, they’re hoping for a second chance at the last chance – and they hope this time it’s for real….(Full Story)

Posted in Town of Bruderheim, Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

January 24, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

It is a few months off yet, but the annual spring-time increase in smell from our sewage lagoon is certain to occur in May or June.

The smell need not to happen.  There is a simple solution that will keep the smell down to tolerable levels and make it virtually unnoticeable.

The solution is not very expensive, much cheaper than, say, the price of a new fire hall.  It has been brought to the attention of Town Council and individual members of Town Council a few times over the years, but no reaction or response has ever come forth from any member of the Town Council or from anyone in the Town Office.

To be fair, upon being asked about the limits of our sewage lagoon, there have been statements from the Town Office that our sewage lagoon is capable of digesting the additional load that the anticipated and hoped-for growth of the Bruderheim population without ill effects on the health and quality of life for the people living in Bruderheim.  Yet,  the offensive smell given off by our sewage lagoon when the water in our sewage lagoon turns over in the spring is often so bad that it becomes noticeable, often to the point of becoming intolerable, even inside the homes of Bruderheim residents.  The smell is likely to become worse as the years go by, unless something is done about it.

Bruderheim is not the first community in the world or even in Canada plagued by smells given off by a community’s sewage lagoon.  The science of effective waste-water management and treatment is well-established.

You may wish to consider the following search results, bring them to the attention of the Town Councillors and inform them that you wish them to use a small portion of our tax dollars to solve the problem with the offensive and increasingly objectionable smell of our sewage lagoon, before it becomes a serious and possibly deadly health issue.

“hydrogen sulphide” lagoon aeration - Google Search

The first ten of 786 items on the search-return list:

1. Norway House Cree Nation - Departments

“9 Mar 2010 … Hydrogen sulphide, which has a rotten egg odour, is formed in wastewaters that become [an]aerobic. Aerated Lagoon: A holding pond usually …”
www.nhcn.ca/publicworks.html

2. Quality Pond Aeration

“Quality Pond Aeration. Windmill Aeration is a simple, natural solution to … bad due to gasses (like hydrogen sulphide) that are released into your pond. …”
www3.sympatico.ca/wind.mill/

3. Dugout or Pond Aeration

“Superior Windmill aerators are perfect for dugout or pond aeration. … aeration removes the foul smelling hydrogen sulphide gas odor and prevents anoxia …”
www.superiorwindmill.com/promo/dugout_pond_aeration.html

4. Fisheries :: Home

“Frequent exchange of water can prevent building up of hydrogen sulphide. … Aeration and increasing the pH of water by hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) …”
agritech.tnau.ac.in/fishery/fish_water.html

5. Fisheries :: Home

“Aeration and water circulation are beneficial in improving bottom soil …”
agritech.tnau.ac.in/fishery/fish_soil.html

6. Bio-Aeration Engineering, Inc. - Anaerobic Digestion

“Bio-Aeration Engineering, Inc. is an environmental company located in Evansville, Indiana. We specialize in the treatment of wastewater in lagoons, …”
www.bioaeration.com/anaerobic_digestion.html

7. Natural Pond Aeration Facts - CLEAN-FLO

“Clean-Flo.com specializes in pond aeration systems which are a natural, … in the water including hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and methane. …”
www.clean-flo.com/articles/natural-pond-aeration-facts/

8. Sewage treatment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“… 2) equipment corrosion due to methanogenesis and hydrogen sulphide, ….. Extended aeration package plants use separate basins for aeration and settling …. “Aerated Lagoons - Wastewater Treatment.” Maine Lagoon Systems Task Force. …”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

9. Hailsham North Waste Site Odour Control - APPS

“By taking Hydrogen Sulphide measurements around the site it became apparent … short term running of the lagoon mixers allowing us to aerate these lagoons …”
www.appstechnologies.co.uk/index.php?section=case-studies&page=hailsham

10. Aeration: the Facts, Aqua info, Technical Aquaculture information …

“Western Australian Aquaculture Information on Aeration the true facts. … such as hydrogen sulphide and ammonia, cannot pass through into the water above. …”
www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/aq/aq020/index.php?0404

The Fort Air Partnership monitoring station in Bruderheim (in the back alley, across from Night Moves) will not be of help in determining what the atmospheric H2S (hydrogen sulphide) levels are at any time in Bruderheim.  H2S is not being monitored by that station.

Here is what is being measured at that monitoring station (select “Site 49: Bruderheim” — requires Internet Explorer).

H2S levels are being measured at the following continuous monitoring stations:

Site 43: Fort Saskatchewan
Site 44: Scottford 2
Site 45: Lamont County (north of Elk Island Park)

So, all you have to go by is your nose and hope that as long as you don’t smell the H2S that it may not be because your sense of smell has been overcome by potentially harmful levels of H2S.

By the way, as discussed on this blog before (Temperature measurements for Fort Saskatchewan area, September 30, 2010), the “current” temperature shown on TV and on the website of the Town of Bruderheim is not being measured in Bruderheim.  It is being measured in Elk Island National Park and is usually a couple degrees or so off.

Another measurement of the current Bruderheim temperature can be accessed at the Fort Air Partnership web page for the Bruderheim monitoring station (select “Site 49: Bruderheim” — requires Internet Explorer).

Mind you, I would believe neither of those temperature values shown for Bruderheim.  Right now, the value shown by the Fort Air Partnership is -2°C, the one shown by The Weather Network is 3°C, while the thermometer in my backyard shows 1°C.

Posted in Town of Bruderheim, Health issues, Weather, Pollution: Health Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | 1 Comment »

January 9, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Thanks to wattsupwiththat.com:

PHYSORG.com
Jan. 9, 2011

Igloo-shaped ‘Poo-Gloos’ eat sewage

January 9, 2011 Enlarge

Poo-Gloos — inexpensive devices to extend the lifespan of sewage lagoons for towns and small cities outgrowing their waste-treatment facilities — are half submerged as officials fill this sewage lagoon in Wellsville, Utah. The igloo-shaped devices are submerged when operating, and a new study shows they remove organic waste and other pollutants from sewage just as well as much more expensive mechanical sewage-treatment plants. Credit: Waste Compliance Systems Inc.

Inexpensive igloo-shaped, pollution-eating devices nicknamed “Poo-Gloos” can clean up sewage just as effectively as multimillion-dollar treatment facilities for towns outgrowing their waste-treatment lagoons, according to a new study.

“The results of this study show that it is possible to save communities with existing lagoon systems hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, by retrofitting their existing wastewater treatment facilities with Poo-Gloos,” says Fred Jaeger, chief executive officer of Wastewater Compliance Systems, Inc., which sells the Poo-Gloo under the name Bio-Dome….(Full Story)

__________
A few years ago I suggested to some members of our town council that it would be worth their while to check out a cheap system of aerating our sewage lagoon.  That would not require a large capital investment and not much more in the way of construction than to install perforated plastic hoses through which air would be discharged to keep the water in a lagoon turning over constantly.  The air could be pumped through the hoses by windmill-powered pumps.  Total costs would probably start up in the order of about $4,000 to $5,000.

Systems like that have been used successfully in lagoons to clear up and prevent odors in large hog productions and in some small towns.  For one thing, such a system of aeration would prevent the annual turn-over of the water in our sewage lagoon that regularly in the spring makes it very unpleasant to spend time outdoors in Bruderheim or any other town plagued by sewage smells from its lagoon.  However, that is not the only thing the system would do.  The research done to produce the aeration system described in the lead-in article showed that sewage water in lagoons can be treated within as short a time as 30 days instead of the year it takes now.

No one from the town council ever responded to the suggestion.  Perhaps, now that the principle of sewage-lagoon aeration has been elevated to a promising commercial level for community planning, it is time for our town council to take another look at what can be done to make life more pleasant in Bruderheim.

Posted in Town of Bruderheim, Health issues, Pollution: Health Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

November 26, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

CANADA Views.ca

Approved Orders in Council
by: Government of Alberta | Nov 25th, 2010
Cabinet Meeting – November 23, 2010
Orders Approved – November 24, 2010

HONOURABLE MR. GOUDREAU 400/2010 FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT (section 4)…. – Orders the separation of certain land from Lamont County and the annexation of that land, approximately 300 hectares (741 acres), to the Town of Bruderheim, effective July 1, 2010. 403/2010 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT ACT (sections 126 and 138)….(Full Story)

I called the Bruderheim Town Office about that.  They were not able to confirm that the order for the annexation of the land in question had gone through or that it had been finalized, as they have not yet received official notification of the approval of the annexation order.

However, they indicated that the land to be annexed is identified on their website.

Posted in Town of Bruderheim, Maps, Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

October 4, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

After about three years of being out of order and following numerous announcements over time that the Bruderheim Town Office’s website would be back in operation “soon” or “within about four weeks from now,” the Town Office’s new website is finally in operation again.

The website looks good and is user-friendly.  It will most certainly attract visitors to Bruderheim and new residents for our town.

The Town Office’s website now presents a very good tool that the old website did not have, a site-specific search-input field that makes it a breeze to find subjects or topics that may not easily or readily be found by using the various links and lists provided in numerous menus throughout the website. (Check the upper, right-hand corner of the page header of each of the site’s web pages.)

It is great to see our town having an official website again.

A quick look through the website reveals only one flaw that is not even obvious but is nevertheless a misrepresentation.  The Bruderheim temperature shown on the home page is not measured in Bruderheim but in Elk Island National Park, about 14km away and at an elevation that is about 84m higher than the parking lot in front of the Town Office. There is not much the Town-Office staff can do to fix that.  That is a problem that needs to be resolved through cooperation between The Weather Network and the Fort Air Partnership.

Posted in Town of Bruderheim, Weather | Print | No Comments »

September 30, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

The following message was sent today to the Fort Air Partnership (and a pertinent portion of it to The Weather Network):

Hello Fort Air Partnership,

Just now I came back to your website to look for the current conditions in Bruderheim, after I had been trying in vain to find them before on some of your web pages.

Some of the problems I encountered some time ago still persist.  It appears that your website does not cater very well to the FireFox web browser.  A substantial portion of Internet users employs FireFox.  You should have your web-designer address that.

It has been a while since the Bruderheim monitoring site had been set up.  You should have your web designer add a menu option for Bruderheim (Site #49) on the following web pages:

• http://www.fortair.org/historical_data.php
• http://www.fortair.org/historical_data.php#Anchor-49575
• http://www.fortair.org/historical_data.php#Anchor-47857

The addition of something like the following line is required in your source code for the station list:

<a href=“airquality_data.asp”>Site 49: Bruderheim</a><br>

A suggestion for your relationship with The Weather Network

The Weather Network derives its current temperature values for Bruderheim, Lamont, Chipman and Saint Michael from the weather station at Elk Island National Park.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to inform the Weather Network of the fact that a temperature display for Bruderheim should more appropriately be derived from local measurements that are being taken at your site #49 in Bruderheim.

Something similar should be done for Fort Saskatchewan.  Surely you can do better in cooperation with the Weather Network.

The current temperature values that are being displayed by The Weather Network for Fort Saskatchewan are being measured at Oliver.  Could one consider that to be more than a bit odd, perhaps in need of a cure? (See Note to the uninitiated)

The suggested improvements would increase the credibility of the Weather Network, while at the same time they could elevate the visibility of your website.

Regards,

Walter Schneider
http://folc.ca

Cc: Some Bruderheim, Lamont and Saint Michael residents; Lamont Leader; The Weather Network

___________
Note to the uninitiated: Although the weather station at Oliver is located within the boundaries of the City of Edmonton, it is located on the site of an agricultural research facility, quite some distance removed from the city of Fort Saskatchewan.  The closest neighbour to the agricultural research facility is a mental health hospital just across the road from the agricultural research facility.

Posted in Town of Bruderheim, Weather | Print | 5 Comments »

July 19, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Today I found the following unbelievable tidbit of information on the Internet

Illiteracy

Bruderheim is notable for producing the largest percentage of functional illiterates (*) from a single town in Canada{{Fact|date=September 2009}}. One notable resident, Matthew Kachur, is famous for having completed an undergraduate and a law degree despite his complete inability to speak or write in the English language{{Fact|date=September 2009}}.

______________
* Functional illiteracy …is a term used to describe reading and writing skills that are inadequate to cope with the demands of everyday life. This is contrasted with illiteracy in the strict sense, meaning the inability to read or write simple sentences in any language. -Characteristics: An illiterate…
(Source: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Bruderheim,_Alberta)

There is a serious logical error in that assertion.  Matthew Kachur must certainly have been literate by Absolute Astronomy’s own definition of illiteracy.  After all, it is hardly appropriate to consider anyone not capable of writing and speaking the English language to be illiterate if he has no trouble coping “with the demands of everyday life.”  Someone capable of acquiring a law degree in any language can hardly be considered to be functionally illiterate, especially if that language is not the one he writes and speaks.

There is absolutely no reference to any source of information (let alone a credible and reputable one) on which Absolute Astronomy bases its assertion.  Even though the definition of illiteracy quoted by Absolute Astronomy was obviously copied from a page in Wikipedia (from a now cached version of that page), it is irrefutable evidence proving that Wikipedia is far from a credible source of reliable information. If anything, the quote used by Absolute Astronomy could easily be taken as evidence that they are gullible enough to be easily fooled and to advertise that fact.

Posted in Town of Bruderheim | Print | No Comments »

July 8, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

The Town of Bruderheim has a telephone answering service.  The answering service, accessible 24/7, is staffed by two involuntary volunteers and provides redirection to intended clients for the Town Office, cheerfully and always ready to serve.

The Bruderheim Town Office is aware of that going on, and has been aware for quite some time, but so far have offered no solution to what is truly an imposition on the involuntary volunteers saddled with the task of providing service to prospective Town Office clients who ask for all sort of things, such as whether we can provide “contact details for Bruce Trucking” or whether we “still operate the bulk-water-terminal.”

The more bizarre such information requests appear to be, the more likely it is that a given party making it is simply looking for the Bruderheim Town Office.

How can it possibly be that our telephone number became the tool whereby Town Office clients find their way to constructive and accurate information offered by office staff paid to provide it, whereas we, my wife and I, get paid sweet tweet, for being always cheerful and eager to provide friendly service to all sort of calls that number anywhere between one and up to five or more a day?  Our telephone number is not even remotely similar to the telephone number used by the Bruderheim Town Office (whose number is 780.796.3731).

For many years, the website of the Town of Bruderheim seriously ailed. It contained, for example, links that ostensibly were to lead to information on current town council members but led instead to a welcoming message by a now former mayor, even long after that mayor had become history for more than a year.  On the other hand, the promised information about the composition of the Bruderheim Town Council remained successfully hidden from all comers.

Still, anyone sufficiently astute in using Internet searches for specific websites and willing to spend the time required to find information on the Town Council’s composition could find it, but relatively few people are that astute.

The Town Office has been aware for years that the glaring deficiencies of its website existed.  Their solution was to hire someone to redesign their website, while the redesigning did nothing to address those deficiencies.

Even after the much-advertised redesigning of their website, the website still showed, for example, a member of the Town Council who years ago had left the Council because he had intended to move away, Marcel Mann.  That was until about half a year ago.

About half a year ago or earlier, the Town Office deigned to announce the launching of another revamping of their website.  They got everyone’s attention by removing all of their web pages and replacing them with a web page that states:

Town of Bruderheim

This site is down for maintenance. Please check back again soon.

That is where things remain as of now.  What you see there is all that remains of the consequences of the last major redesign of the website of the Town of Bruderheim. Of course, the creation of absence of useful information is an unsatisfactory problem solution.  As you can see from the full text of that web page, the information provided there is useless for anyone trying to glean something as simple as instructions on how the Bruderheim Town Office can be contacted either by e-mail, snail-mail or telephone.

The reason why we have been forced into providing answering services for the Town Office is that prospective clients keep on searching for better information than that offered by the Bruderheim Town Office.  All who succeed in that effort are then rewarded by reaching the best possible alternative, the website of About Bruderheim, where they can obtain our telephone number, call us and get helpful advice, such as to call 780.796.3731 during standard government-bureaucracy operating hours from 9 a.m to 4 p.m.

When we paid our increased property taxes last June, we suggested to the Town Office staff that it would be a practical solution to add contact information to their cryptic message at their website, but other than that they verified that such information was absent from their website and that they told us that we would probably be very interested in “the roll-out of the newly redesigned Town Office website at their next Town Council meeting,” absolutely nothing was done to improve the quality of the service they provide to their clients.  They persist in hiding their identity and location, even though the required update of their website would not require more than a few seconds of work.

Sorry people, but that is not good enough, not for as long as Town Office staff feel that a “roll-out” is as or more important than a practical and useful update of the Town Office website and to put it online for all to see and use.  The general public and your constituents expect nothing less!

Posted in Town of Bruderheim, Taxes, Organizational News, Community & Industry | Print | 3 Comments »

July 3, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

The following graph shows sulphur-price trends over time.

People asked me a few times during the past few weeks about what is happening with the feared construction of the HAZCO sulphur-storage, -forming and -shipping facility that HAZCO so eagerly and urgently wanted to build not quite two miles east of Bruderheim, at the junction of Highway 45 and RR 202.

Well, the NRCB hearing last year decided to give HAZCO the go-ahead on that; against the wishes of many opponents.

It seems that HAZCO’s sense of urgency that drove their application evaporated in consequence of the collapse of the sulphur-price-bubble that had emerged in 2007 and popped by the end of 2008.

For most of 2009 plant-gate sulphur prices were below $0.00/LT and even as as low as -$29.52/LT.  That means that sulphur sources would have paid as much as $28.52/LT to selected “purchasers” just to have excess sulphur taken off their hands.

In other words, for as long as sulphur requires a subsidy to be leaving plant gates, to which then still the cost of forming and shipping the sulphur to Vancouver must be added before it can be injected into the saturated world market, it is not likely that producers or HAZCO will make a profit on selling, forming and shipping of sulphur.

It seems that common sense in standard business practices applies.  For now the sulphur business that HAZCO wanted to engage in at a profit is a bust and will not generate the revenues required for the cost of constructing the HAZCO sulphur facility, aside from the cost of forming and shipping of sulphur.

However, I am not the expert.  Perhaps it is possible to obtain better information from HAZCO or from the Lamont county planners who are busy having the infra-structure built from our tax money with which they hope to attract industries that will pay back what they invest.

Mind you, losses are not a great concern for the county planners or for the NRCB.  Whatever losses they cause will be paid for by the taxpayers.  It’s a no-risk business for planners and for the NRCB, although the taxpayers will lose a great deal even if the HAZCO facility will not be built.

The whole deal is not worth it to me to spend more time on.  I am through worrying about bubbles, and it likely that another bubble will not pop up for quite some years.  The last bubble we had pop up in the same place, before this one, popped up about 40 years ago.  Perhaps it will now be another 40 years before the next one pops up and then bursts.

Posted in Taxes, Town of Bruderheim, Community & Industry, World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs | Print | No Comments »