The Municipality of Tweed is located halfway between Toronto and Ottawa in the Central-Eastern part of Ontario, Canada. With continued population growth, the municipality’s existing sewage lagoons required expansion. Funding assistance provided by the Government of Canada’s Green Infrastructure Stream and the Government of Ontario allowed the sewage lagoon system upgrade project to move forward in early 2021.

The scope of the project included maintenance of the existing two lagoons as well as construction of a third cell, new blowers and aeration systems, piping and valve modifications, a new flow control chamber, and a new covered discharge pipe.

These improvements will enable the community to increase the lagoon’s capacity to accommodate future growth.

Strong Brothers General Contracting were the successful bidder for the project and began site preparation in Spring of 2021. Approximately 60,000 cubic metres of soil was moved to construct the third cell and prepare for the liner system.

ICONIX Waterworks worked closely with Greer Galloway Consulting Engineers to support the specification of the geosynthetic products required for the project. ICONIX coordinated the supply and installation of approximately 32,000 square metres of 40-mil LLDPE Enviromax Black ST single side textured liner manufactured by Solmax. Textured geomembrane was specified to provide friction on the slopes of the lagoon wall. An additional 64,000 square metres of Mirafi® 1160N non-woven geotextile manufactured by Tencate Geosynthetics was installed as part of the lagoon liner system. This heavyweight geotextile protected the LLDPE geomembrane during installation and cover operations. Membranes FR Liners Inc. from Chartierville, QC were the geomembrane liner system installation contractor.

The liner system was installed as a “sandwich” consisting of 1160N geotextile, Enviromax liner, and 1160N geotextile. To minimize handling and speed up installation, the 1160N
geotextile rolls were factory-sewn to double-width rolls. The Enviromax liner panels were welded together using a wedge welder. Pipe penetrations were sealed using an extrusion-welding process.

The Enviromax LLDPE-liner and protective geotextile system was installed between September 8, 2021 and October 20, 2021. During this time, over 170mm of rain fell on the project site, making for challenging installation conditions. Despite the rainfall, the crews from FR Liners completed the liner installation ahead of schedule.

ICONIX Waterworks was involved from the initial site meeting in February 2021 through to completion of the LLDPE liner system in October 2021.