In his latest attempt at empire building, Rod Bryden is betting he can earn some of the billions of dollars in coming infrastructure funding in Canada.

The Ottawa-based entrepreneur's SC Stormont management company has high expectations for a waste-collection system that can cut the cost of treating residential wastewater and sewage by as much as 80 per cent, as well as improve a system's ecological footprint.

And it may get Bryden's entrepreneurial streak, which began with computer integration company Systemhouse Ltd. in 1974, back on track after its setback with bankrupt Terrace Corp., which was the principal owner of the National Hockey League's Ottawa Senators.

Called a small-bore sewer (SBS), the waste-collection system is the flagship product of Stormont subsidiary Clearford Industries.

Ashley Fraser, Business Edge
Clearford Industries principals Bruce Linton, left, and Rod Bryden arebuilding the firm's future around its small-bore sewer.

Bryden says all Canadian communities are being pushed by clean-water legislation and green-procurement policies to literally clean up their acts.

"The move to more structured systems is very sensitive to cost and environmental impact. (SBS) improves both," he says.

So far, the market believes him.

When Stormont took over Clearford, which was known as Innovative Water and Sewer Systems, at the beginning of the year, it did a private placement worth $2.4 million.

The shares sold for 56 cents. Today they're valued at 80 cents, Bryden says, even without a short-term guarantee of increasing 2004's revenue of $600,000.

Bryden sees environmental technology as the best bet in a "necessity-driven" market. But it's still a tough sell, so he tapped former tech-industry entrepreneur Bruce Linton to be CEO and president of Clearford.

He's also teaming up with an old friend, Ottawa architect Douglas Cardinal, to prove his technology can work anywhere.

Linton calls SBS - which was developed by Clearford's chief technology officer Richard Connelly - "a septic system on steroids."

Unlike conventional systems, it does not mix liquid and solid wastes. Liquids are siphoned off and driven by air pressure through a small-diameter, seamless plastic pipe to a treatment facility.

Solids are sedimented in a clarifier - similar to a septic tank - under each house. As a result, the waste does not contain any industrial byproducts, unlike the residues at most municipal plants.

Architect Douglas Cardinal is part of the Clearford team.

The system offers three main advantages. Treating liquids is far cheaper than treating a liquid-solid mix and clarifiers can last up to 17 years before they need to be emptied. SBS also can be installed with low-impact trenching and boring instead of the deep excavations needed for conventional systems, which usually accounts for about 30 per cent of overall costs.

Linton says new municipal systems cost about $50,000 per house while Clearford's start at about $10,000. The company recently signed an agreement with construction giant PCL Constructors for all SBS installations across Canada.

One immediate environmental benefit is that SBS uses a fraction of the approximately 90 litres of water needed per house per day to move sewage through existing community systems.

"Because of new legislation that demands better treatment of wastewater and sewage, there's a big problem coming for communities that don't have facilities and who have no desire to pay the cost of a (conventional) system," Linton says.

"This is especially true in remote, northern communities where costs can go even higher than down south."

It's an area of concern for governments committed to building new northern settlements but that are wary of the costs and environmental effects.

Ontario Minister of Economic Development and Trade Joe Cordiano believes his government isn't doing enough to bring sustainable technology to the north. "We need to be creative, to embrace emerging technologies so communities of all sizes can deal with their waste and energy issues efficiently," he says.

Cordiano notes this year's creation of the Small Business Agency will help small and medium enterprises such as Clearford take advantage of green-procurement policies.

Steve Meldrum, CEO of Burlington-based Eco Waste Solutions, also sees the trend to environmentally responsible waste disposal as an economic necessity.

The company's waste incinerators are becoming the main choice of military and resource-extraction facilities in tough-to-reach locations in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

"Isolated communities, whether they're temporary or permanent, need remote-point-of-need solutions because getting rid of waste can become prohibitively expensive," Meldrum says. "Either you pay huge amounts to cart it out or you pay the price of pollution by burning it."

Eco Waste's thermal oxidizer is an enclosed double-burn system that incinerates solid and liquid waste and then reburns the smoke so that effluent from the plant's stack is smokeless and odourless. It can deal with everything from municipal to medical waste products and dead animals.

Meldrum declines to reveal revenue, but says he ships five to eight units a year, each ranging in price from $100,000 to $1 million. Customers also include island nations, primarily in the Caribbean.

"For companies operating in remote sites, their environmental-impact study says they have to get rid of their waste in an environmentally friendly way," Meldrum says.

"For others, it becomes part of how they want to live their lives."

Cardinal echoes that human focus on waste treatment when he plans communities, primarily Aboriginal towns in Canada's North. He emphasizes that waste disposal should not dictate how and where people live - which is not the case in most Canadian communities.

"That's the problem with conventional systems. Whole communities are designed around it and houses crammed around it. Everything is crowded and this leads to social problems," Cardinal says.

Cardinal, who is from Red Deer, Alta., is one of Canada's best-known architects. His projects range from the high-profile Museum of Civilization in Ottawa to the Fairview Elementary School in his hometown.

He's won a basketful of awards for designs that mimic the intricate curves of seashells and the soaring heights of forests.

Since the 1980s, Cardinal's work has leaned toward sustainable development. In 1995, he completed Ouje-Bougoumou in northern Quebec, Canada's first self-sustainable community, which generates all its own energy by burning locally available biomass.

The James Bay Cree village won the United Nations' Global Village Award and continues to be a model for environmentally friendly communities.

Cardinal's newest project is Anicinapek de Kitcisakik, an Aboriginal village of 400 near Louvicourt in northern Quebec. While planning the development, Cardinal became intrigued by Bryden's SBS technology. (The two met in the 1970s when Bryden's Systemhouse used the architect's office as a pilot project for computerization.)

"It has a lot of things going for it that can help First Nations people lead their lives with self-determination. It costs less and the technology is designed to keep waste from polluting aquifers," Cardinal says.

"It doesn't use the grid layout of conventional systems. This allows for flexible residential planning, which is more culturally beneficial," he says.

Bryden agrees, but takes a more pragmatic approach. He believes environmental responsibility is a cost of doing business today, not some projected future expense.

"It's a new reality that development and infrastructure markets have to take into account. It's ultimately being driven by necessity. With (SBS), I think (Linton) and I can drive it sooner than later," he says.

(Mike Levin can be reached at levin@businessedge.ca)