ELORA – Fergus and Elora firefighters were called to a fire at the wastewater treatment plant at 6510 Wellington Road 7 just before 1am on Dec. 21.
But while there was smoke, there was no fire, said deputy chief Jonathan Karn.
“There was some smoke in the mechanical room,” Karn said on Dec. 22. “It was from an overheated motor on the rooftop. There was no fire but the smoke set off the fire alarm.”
Karn said waterworks staff were on scene and firefighters handed the scene over to them to manage the repair.
“The incident was caused by an overheating drive belt on a motor for one of the aeration basin blowers,” said managing director of infrastructure services Colin Baker in an email.
“When the drive belt failed, it produced smoke, which filled the blower building and subsequently triggered the fire alarm system.”
Baker said the plant has a spare blower that was immediately brought online.
“As a result, there were no impacts to the wastewater treatment processes and treated wastewater effluent discharged to the Grand River remained within acceptable limits.
“Operations isolated the blower, confirmed the source of the smoke, and began planning belt replacement and inspection of the motor and pulleys to prevent recurrence,” he said.
