By 2010, three sewage treatment plants, made almost entirely of stainless steel, will help to restore Halifax harbour (Nova Scotia, Canada) to its original purity. The USD 333 million Halifax Harbour Solutions Project will improve water quality dramatically while transforming a murky, foul-smelling waterway into what James Campbell, spokesperson for the project, calls “the jewel of the city.” At the heart of the project are three treatment plants being built by Degrémont Halifax, a division of Paris-based global water treatment giant Degrémont Suez. The material of choice for a great many of the pipes, pumps, screens, conveyors and other components of the treatment plants is nickel-containing stainless steel. Practically all the stainless used in the plants will be S30400, except for the last stages of the treatment process, when more corrosion-resistant S31600 is needed. Degrémont is building the treatment plants in partnership with Dexter Construction Co. Ltd. Dexter also has the USD 112 million contract to lay 20,000m of new sewer pipe to feed the plants. The Halifax plant will be in operation by spring 2007. The Dartmouth plant, on the opposite side of the harbour, will come on-stream in August of that year and be joined by the smaller Herring Cove plant, near the harbour’s mouth, in mid-2008. Tidal action will ensure a dramatic and almost immediate improvement in water quality.