City Notes: Catching up on wastewater plant issues and ideas
By Dan Rimrod, Wastewater Superintendent, Charles City
It’s that time of the year again. I am sitting here thinking of what I need to fill you all in on.
Since my last City Notes it has been an eventful year. It has brought some good and some not so good days, just like my golf game.
First on the list is the one, the big one, when we had to push the stop button a little over a year ago.
For the plant, the 2008 flood was nothing compared to Sept. 23, 2016. The largest amount of rain leading up to the 2008 flood was 3.3 inches. Last September we had 9.2 inches in a little over a day leading up to Sept. 23. We appreciated all the community had to do in dealing with this event, along with all that helped out at the plant and around the town. It wasn’t fun or easy and a few individuals had to put themselves in harm’s way in order to get the plant back up and running. I saw so much good in people during those few days working together.
We can’t change a major flow event, but we did find some ways to help protect the plant.
On May 17 of this year a storm came through and left parts of town powerless. I am happy to say we kept everything running with our portable generator. We continuously moved between two lift stations throughout a 24-hour period to keep the lift station levels low enough that homes were not impacted.
We have been working on getting generators at all the major lift stations, and this event confirmed that need. These units automatically power on when there is a power loss, which takes the worry out of having any lifts down for a period of time.
We are continuing to work on the facility upgrades to make the plant up to today’s standards. We have toured a few other plants and have walked away with some good information and ideas.
I have been keeping a list of needs and ideas in order to get what is needed. Along with the upgrade comes ways of partnering with other groups for environmental impact programs, such as nutrient runoff and watershed runoff. Slowing down the nutrients in water runoff to our streams is environmentally very desired.
I would like to take the time to note that sump pumps/rain gutters, etc. should not be discharged directly into the sanitary sewer line. Although one discharge may seem small, one by one, they add significantly to flow amounts.
During times of high influent flow, the plant has to work that much harder to keep up with unnecessary amounts of water.
Regulations require that we treat all flows, so if we can keep them down, the plant can operate more efficiently and without any violations and costly fines. Please take some time and check to see if your home is in compliance.
Chemicals such as gasohol, diesel, grease, paints and any unnecessary materials are not to be put into the sewer. The digested treatment and secondary treatment systems operate biologically with living organisms and these substances can be harmful to this treatment process.
We also highly encourage that any questionable materials (those unable to break down) or those that have the possibility of plugging the sewer system be disposed of in another manner.
“Flushable” wipes have been seen in the marketplace in recent years. There was a large campaign to include the word “flushable” on packaged items and it has been a big debate.
The word “flushable” is used to encourage the purchase of these items, but please disregard the word, “flushable” on these products, as they often are
not flushable. Not only could city mains become clogged, but often private sewer lines become clogged first, creating unnecessary expense and mess to the homeowner.
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