Merritt’s own Kevin Vilac earns national recognition
November 2024
The City of Merritt’s own Kevin Vilac is again recognized as a Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator “Top Performer” for 2024 by Water Summit Canada. A Winner of the 2022 award, Kevin was recognized by Environmental Operators Certification Program (EOCP) Recognition Awards and honoured at the 2022 ECOP Conference.
This “Operator of the Year Award” honours an exemplary operator whose dedication and leadership have set a benchmark for excellence in the Canadian water sector. Kevin was given this award in 2022 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to his workplace, the water industry, and his community.
We again celebrate Kevin as a “Top Performer” and finalist for the 2024 Operator of the Year Award:
- 2024 Operator of the Year | Finalist
Kevin is featured as a “Top Performer” in the November 2024 issue of Treatment Plant Operator magazine.
- 2023 Operator of the Year | Finalist
Kevin is again nominated for Operator of the Year and is featured in Environmental Science and Engineering Magazine in October 2023.
- 2022 Operator of the Year | Winner
Kevin won the award for Operator of the Year in 2022. Kevin was instrumental in getting Merritt’s water and wastewater systems back online after the flood in November 2021. He coordinated with the Operators from the cities of Kelowna and Kamloops, and the Black Mountain Irrigation District who offered aid to help restore the systems. He was honoured in person at the 2022 Awards Dinner. Kevin is featured in the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives‘ document A Climate Reckoning: The Economic Costs of BC’s Extreme Weather in 2021. Read his story at merritt.ca/stories.
BIO: KEVIN VILAC
Kevin is invested in the City of Merritt. Starting out as a seasonal labourer for the City, he has worked hard to move up to become a certified WWTP operator, where he has spent the past 14 years making sure that the plant runs smoothly. Wearing many hats, Kevin also must be an out-of-the-box creative thinker, coming up with solutions to the same issues larger WWTP’s have without the luxury of a trove of replacement parts at hand.
The greatest challenge he has faced to date was Merritt’s flood in 2021. The city was inundated with an unprecedented volume of water, which meant the operators weren’t just called into action to protect residents and the environment from the rising waters, but also the critical infrastructure of the WWTP. Kevin has recently been recognized for his hard work and awarded the 2022 EOCP Operator of the Year award where the level of support provided for his nomination was unprecedented. He barely took a break during the Merritt floods and his contributions in getting water and wastewater systems running again were significant.
REPRINT | Treatment Plant Operator | November 2024
“Outside the Box”
by James Careless
In conditions from catastrophic floods and day-to-day operation, Kevin Vilac has led his team with creativity and a sound education and training background.
The British Columbia City of Merritt lies about three hours northeast of Vancouver sits in a valley at the confluence of the Coldwater and Nicola rivers. In recent years, the area has been prone to severe flooding. In May 2017 high rainfall sent the Nicola River over its banks, inundating city streets and properties.
Then as now, Kevin Vilac was chief operator of the city’s water and wastewater systems. As the water rose during that 2017 flood, Vilac and his staff faced a serious problem. “We had a lot of inflow and infiltration due to overland flooding,” he recalls. “With that we had extremely high flows into the treatment plant and we weren’t able to process all the wastewater coming at us.”
In a case like that, most wastewater treatment plants would have been overwhelmed, but Vilac came up with a solution that would have made TV’s MacGyver proud. “To mitigate overflow, I designed an overland bypass using two trash pumps,” he says. “It allowed us to protect our plant while draining our equalization tank directly into our aeration tank. With this fix, we were able to treat everything while staying within permit.”
REPEAT PERFORMANCE
Unfortunately for Merritt (population 7,000), an even worse flood hit the city in November 2021. The water rose so high that it flooded the lower level of the wastewater plant. “The 2017 flood was a trickle compared to that one,” Vilac says. “Things got so bad that the plant was flooded out, forcing the evacuation of the entire city as a health precaution.
Still, Vilac and his crew didn’t go down without a fight. According to an in-depth report on globalnews.ca, “Vilac and his small team scrambled to protect key equipment, barricading doors with gravel and makeshift dikes made from ladders and bubble wrap, but the frantic efforts could not prevent the water system’s collapse. By the morning, sewage-filled water covered the streets of Merritt.”
In recognition of these efforts and his general achievements, Vilac won the 2022 Operator of the Year award from the Environmental Operators Certification Program. He was also a finalist for the 2023 Water Canada Summit Operator of the Year award.
According to the citation for the WCS award, “Wearing many hats, Kevin also must be an out-of-the-box creative thinker. … He barely took a break during the Merritt floods and his contributions in getting water and wastewater systems running again were significant.” “It was very humbling and really left me speechless to receive those awards,” Vilac says. “I like that I get to deal with biology, chemistry, computers and mechanics on the job, in the sense of having to fix or repair things as best I can. The challenges I face every day are different.”
UNEXPECTED CAREER
As Merritt’s chief water and wastewater operator, Vilac holds a number of certifications. They include Level IV Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator, Water Distribution Operator, and Water Treatment Operator, plus Level II certificates for Multi-Utility Operations and Wastewater Collection. He also owns Cross Connection Control Inspector certification.
That would be impressive enough for someone who had chosen water as a career and then pursued a carefully planned path. But it’s more impressive given that Vilac had no plans at all when he was hired by the city as a seasonal worker in 2006.
“I was born in 1973 in New Westminster where my mom worked as a postal worker and my dad drove a forklift for a lumber company,” says Vilac, a lifelong British Columbia resident. “I grew up in Surrey until I was eight years old.”
His family then moved to Coquitlam, where he graduated from Centennial Senior Secondary School in 1991. He bounced around a variety of jobs, from delivering Chinese food and operating tow trucks to commercial garbage pickup and aluminum fabrication and welding for an awning shop in Kelowna.
“Kelowna was too big for my liking, so I moved to Merritt where I could afford to buy a house, and I drove a truck for nearly two years. Then I got a call from the city of Merritt in July 2006, got interviewed and was hired on as a seasonal laborer.”
FINDING A PATH
Even then, Vilac had no big career plans: “I was just happy to be hired because of the security of working for the city. He did everything from running weed whackers in parks to doing the city’s three-day per week garbage pickup, “which happened after they found out about my commercial garbage work,” he says.
In 2008 Vilac was assigned to the utilities department doing road work. “And then one day they needed somebody to work in the wastewater treatment plant because the operator had gotten sick,” he recalls. “Nobody wanted to work there because of it being sewage.
“I knew nothing about wastewater, but thanks to my background in garbage, smells and gross stuff didn’t bother me. So I volunteered to work in the plant for whatever they needed. And during that first day, seeing everything that was going on, and all the parts and pieces, and everything you needed to know, that’s when I decided this job was for me.”
With his newfound ambition, Vilac asked the chief operator of the day: “What was required, how do I get into it, what do I need to do to be hired?” He went on to take the Sacramento State University courses.
“Once the city realized that I was doing this stuff on my own, they supported me with training and started sending me the courses. I ended up being moved into the wastewater treatment plant in 2010. And even though I was still classed as an equipment operator, I was actually a plant operator working on my own, because the chief operator had moved on.”
Sticking with his education, Vilac accumulated his certifications as he gained experience: “In 2015 I officially became chief operator of the wastewater treatment plant, but I still wasn’t fully certified based on our plant’s classification. So I continued with studies, taking courses and working my way up to become fully certified. I literally went from the bottom to the top.”
TREATING THE FLOW
Merritt’s wastewater plant has been fully restored since the flood of 2021. Located in the city’s public works yard, it receives wastewater only from the city. Influent flows through a gravity-fed sanitary sewer system with two siphons and two lift stations, using a 2.4 hp pump at one station (Flygt, a Xylem Brand) and two 10 hp Flygt pumps at the other. The plant is controlled by an iFIX SCADA system (GE Digital).
“We have a Class IV wastewater treatment plant, which is an activated sludge facility,” Vilac says. The average flow is about 845,000 gpd. The headwork includes a Muffin Monster grinder and an Auger Monster screenings system (both JWC Environmental), and an Eimco grit separation (Ovivo). This is followed by the activated sludge process and clarification.
The plant produces about 3,900 cubic feet of biosolids per day; it is dewatered on a belt filter press (Komline-Sanderson). The resulting monthly average of about 22 tons of cake solids is composted in a city facility.
As for plant outflows, “If we have to, we can discharge into the Coldwater River,” says Vilac. “But pretty much 100% of our flow is discharged into four rapid infiltration basins on rotation from our settling pond. The final effluent percolates into the ground and recharges the aquifer.”
All of this is handled by Vilac along with Jeremy Long, Level II multiutility operator; Craig Fournier, Level I multi-utility operator; and Jessica Sulz, Level II multi-utility relief operator. “They’re a great crew,” Vilac says. “Between the four of us, we maintain the city’s wastewater and water plants.”
THE ROAD AHEAD
Since entering the wastewater field, Vilac has seen a number of career highlights. “One major highlight was receiving the EOCP Operator of the Year award,” he says. “Another was being nominated for Water Canada for Operator of the Year. And a third would be achieving my Level IV certification for wastewater treatment, which was the hardest exam I’ve had to write.”
As for the future, besides his duties in Merritt, Vilac is helping the nearby village of Lytton deal with recovery and rebuilding in its drinking water system, which was damaged by fire and floods in 2021, at a time when the village is seeking a certified water operator.
“I’d also like to teach, if I could find the time,” he says. “With everything I have going on, it’s a little too much for my plate. That’s why I’m really looking forward to being able to retire in 10 years. I hope to give teaching a shot then.”
Merritt’s own Kevin Vilac wins “Operator of the Year” award
November 2022
The City of Merritt’s own Kevin Vilac wins the 2022 Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator “Operator of the Year” award by Environmental Operators Certification Program (EOCP) Recognition Awards and honoured at the ECOP Conference.
This “Operator of the Year Award” honours an exemplary operator whose dedication and leadership have set a benchmark for excellence in the Canadian water sector. Kevin was given this award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to his workplace, the water industry, and his community.
Kevin was instrumental in getting Merritt’s water and wastewater systems back online after the flood in November 2021. He coordinated with the Operators from the cities of Kelowna and Kamloops, and the Black Mountain Irrigation District who offered aid to help restore the systems. He was honoured in person at the 2022 Awards Dinner. Kevin is featured in the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives‘ document A Climate Reckoning: The Economic Costs of BC’s Extreme Weather in 2021. Read his story at merritt.ca/stories.
