Constructed in 1980, the Chase River Trunk Sewer is 3400 meters in length; it starts at Seventh Street and Stirling Street and runs to the Regional District of Nanaimo Chase River Pump Station near the corner of Highway 1 and Haliburton Street. In 2014 the Chase River Sanitary Sewer Master Plan was completed, this study found nearly 2400 metres (about 70%) of the sewer is operating at capacity and in some sections there is a risk of the sewer surcharging and overflowing during a wet weather event.
Conventional replacement of the sewer would be challenging as there are some sections of the sewer which are between 7 to 10 meters deep, and some of those deep sections are under residential neighborhoods or environmentally sensitive areas.
An extensive options analysis was completed to determine the best approach to address the capacity issues. Constructing a pump station which diverts the flow from the Chase River Trunk Sewer was found to be the option which is the most cost effective, the least disruptive to the existing neighborhoods and has the lowest potential environmental impact.