Special Report: The Power of People
- By L. K. Williams
- Jul 01, 2007
In the business of water and wastewater,
there’s nothing more satisfying than doing
the job right and having someone notice.
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, the Water Environment Federation,
and the Partnership for Safe Water have recognized
more than 50 facilities over the last
eight months. They applaud the good work
that can be found in the industry. Water &
Wastewater News has surveyed the winning field
and showcases some of those plants that seem
to have taken chances and stretched the limits
of their resources.
We salute the work done by the staff of EPA-honored
wastewater treatment facilities:
• Rock Creek Advanced Wastewater Treatment
Facility of Hillsboro, Ore.;
• Wanatah Wastewater Treatment Facility
of Wanatah, Ind.; and
• Sturgis Wastewater Treatment Facility of
Sturgis, S.D.
From the drinking water sector, we honor
recipients of the three American Water Works
Association 10-year Director Awards:
• Peter L. Jacob Water Treatment Plant of
the Champlain Water District (Vermont),
• Nottingham Water Treatment Plant of the
City of Cleveland (Ohio) Division of Water, and
• Alfred M. Smith Water Treatment Plant of
the Southern Nevada Water Authority (Nevada).
Santa Clara Valley, Calif., came out on top
for its stormwater management program. EPA
for the first time presented water efficiency
awards and WWN also recognizes the Southern
Nevada Water Authority for its Water
Smart program.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Florida’s Water Reuse Program. In the government/
military category, EPA recognized Florida’s
Water Reuse Program as a Water Efficiency
Leader (WEL).
As of 2005, 41 percent of all wastewater in
Florida was treated for reuse. The state’s program
includes state regulations, public outreach, and
reuse feasibility studies.
In Florida, 465 water reclamation facilities
provide about 660 million gallons per day (mgd)
of reclaimed water for beneficial uses, including
irrigation of more than 201,000 residential lawns,
462 golf courses, 572 parks, and 251 schools.
“We are honored to receive one of the first
WEL Awards,” said David York, the Department of
Environmental Protection’s water reuse coordinator.
He explained that the program is a collaborative
effort among the state regulatory agency, five
water management districts, the state department
of health, the Public Service Commission,
and several other state agencies.
Reuse is an integral part of water resources
management, wastewater management, and
ecosystem management in Florida.
The City of Fresno’s Industrial Pretreatment
Program, Fresno, Calif. Fresno receives industrial
wastewater from more than 21 significant
industrial users. Its municipal pretreatment program
has made significant strides toward compliance:
over the course of 15 years, compliance
increased from 65 percent to 91 percent.
EPA honored the city for reducing industrial
pollutants and protecting beneficial uses of
reclaimed products. The city nominates hardworking
regulated facilities for awards and sponsors
its own awards as well as coordinates public
information campaigns.
The Wastewater Management Division operates
the pretreatment program. This is a joint
effort between the city and industries to control
the levels of industrial contaminants entering the
sewer system by permitting, inspections, monitoring,
and enforcement of industries using the
Regional Water Reclamation Facility services. At
the same time, the program increases reclamation
options (treatment and reuse) for the effluent
and biosolids resulting from the wastewater treatment
process. The industrial/commercial component
of the wastewater flow has been estimated
to be approximately 15 percent of total flow.
The Wastewater Management Division is
tasked as the enforcement authority for the pretreatment
program. Regulations are enforced
through actions that could escalate from simple
warning notices to cease-and-desist orders if discharges
constitute a public health and safety
issue. Compliance through pollution prevention
measures instead of enforcement actions is highly
preferred. Increasing facility inspections has
played an active role in improving communication
with industries and the overall compliance rate in
the last five years.
Watertown Wastewater Treatment Facility,
Watertown, S.D. This city’s wastewater division
has televised its entire collection system to rank
repair and replacement priorities, annually jets
parts of the sanitary sewer system, and has taken
an aggressive approach toward operations, maintenance,
and financing.
Castleton Wastewater Treatment Facility,
Castleton, Vt. EPA honored this facility for maintaining
an average 97 percent to 99 percent
removal of biochemical oxygen demand and total
suspended solids, in-house manufacture of fixtures
for grinder pump canisters, and virtually no
overflows or backups. A biosolids program meets
or exceeds all requirements of its residuals management
certification. |
Rock Creek Advanced
Wastewater Treatment
Facility, Hillsboro, Ore.
This facility won EPA’s first-place award for
excellence in operations and maintenance in the
large, advanced treatment plant category. Rock
Creek has adopted an improved phosphorus
removal process using a combination of biological,
chemical, and physical processes. The
new process removes 85 percent to 95 percent
of soluble phosphorus and has saved more than
$100,000 in annual operating costs. It also has
reduced the amount of alum added to the wastewater,
which reduces aluminum and its salts into
the biosolids and also dissolved solids in the
cleaned wastewater.
Rock Creek is part of the Clean Water Services
special service district that works with seven
member cities. It began operation in 1978.
Tom Stow, operations division manager, has
been working for Clean Water Services for 14
years. The district was formerly known as the
Unified Sewerage Agencies. “My tenure here
is not too important,” Stow said, adding that
his job is to “clear hurdles for the staff.”
“They know what they are doing. Our
facility is well operated and well maintained.
Our staff takes a lot of pride in their work,”
he commented.
The Rock Creek facility staff includes 12
operators, some of whom have been with the facility for 31 years. “Some of them have
had the benefit of seeing a lot of it built,” Stow
said. From 1995 to 2005, Rock Creek has
made changes to its facility by adding anaerobic
digesters, a dewatering building, four belt
presses, covered clarifiers, new raw sewage
pumps, improved odor control equipment,
aeration basins/secondary clarifier, and new
head works. It also has expanded its tertiary
gravity filtration system.
Stow said the facility will be adding another
secondary clarifier and is updating its facility
plan. A blueprint for the next 20 years,
the plan will help Rock Creek determine what
changes need to be made and when. For example,
certain levels of flow and load will trigger
actions to better serve the facility’s customers.
“We want to build in manageable chunks,”
Stow explained.
The Rock Creek facility provides wastewater
treatment for Hillsboro, portions of Beaverton,
Aloha, and unincorporated Washington County.
The treated wastewater is discharged to the
Tualatin River. The Rock Creek facility provides
advanced treatment, including phosphorous
and ammonia-nitrogen nutrient removal,
and effluent filtration. Rock Creek provides
Level IV effluent for irrigation water for public
application.
Biosolids streams from the Hillsboro and
Forest Grove facilities as well as a portion of
these plants’ influent flow are treated at Rock
Creek. Biosolids are digested, processed, and
dewatered at the facility. These biosolids are
then land-applied.
The strength of Rock Creek can be found
in its staff, well-designed facilities, good support,
and help from the collection and source control
personnel, Stow said. “It’s a real team effort.”
The facility also was recognized for its
eight-module training program for new operator
trainees, and the
Safety Silver Dollar
reward program for
safety on the job.
Wanatah
Wastewater
Treatment
Facility,
Wanatah, Ind.
Only two full-time
employees operate this
first-place, EPA award
recipient for excellence
in operations and maintenance.
Wanatah has a
population of about
1,200 people; its wastewater
treatment plant
and collection system
were installed in the
early 1990s.
Chuck Mack is
public works superintendent
and oversees
operations of the town’s
water and wastewater
treatment facility. He
works with Charles Jonas, water superintendent,
who was hired in 1995.
The facility, which treats about 73,000 gallons
of wastewater per day, is contained by a
post frame enclosure, which allows operations
and maintenance to be conducted indoors.
Approximately 5 percent of the flow comes
from industrial sources.
According to EPA Region V, which originally
nominated the facility, the plant does an
outstanding job of pollutant removal, consistently
removing 99 percent of the biochemical
oxygen demand and 97 percent of the suspended
solids from the incoming wastewater.
Major treatment processes include preliminary
treatment, biological treatment by means
of activated sludge, final clarification, ultraviolet
disinfection, and post-aeration prior to
discharge to Slocum Ditch, a tributary of
the Kankakee River.
Sludge is aerobically digested and further stabilized/
dewatered in reed beds. The award also
notes achievements in
the facility’s programs for
laboratory control and
sludge management.
Mack said that as
soon as the facility was
completed, “I immediately
began cross-training
in the operations of the public water system, and
all employees since then have been cross-trained
in both utility operations.” Mack and Jonas are
licensed to operate both facilities as well as the
collection distribution systems.
“Wanatah, being a small community, utilizes
cross-training to better prepare itself to deal
with a wide spectrum of possible problems in
both the wastewater and water operations,”
Mack explained. “We believe cross-training
develops good problem-solving skills, which is
our strength in facility operations as well as in
the field. The cross-training also allows us to
operate with fewer employees because our
employees have the ability to perform varied
work tasks.”
“I believe our facility’s success in winning the
EPA award is the sum of many parts—employee
dedication and longevity, cross-training, problem-
solving, and a well-designed wastewater
treatment facility,” Mack said.
Sturgis Wastewater
Treatment Facility,
Sturgis, S.D.
EPA named the Sturgis Wastewater Treatment
Facility first in the category of large, nondischarging
plant.
Randy Nohava, Sturgis public works director
of seven years, explained that the town’s
lagoon system processes an average of 450,000
gallons per day. The all-gravity flow system sends
wastewater to the aeration pond first, then to
the second pond where it sits for 180 days,
and finally to the third and fourth ponds where
the water is connected to piping for local farming
irrigation. Treated wastewater from the
ponds is used to irrigate about 240 acres, mainly
for haying purposes.
In the first week of August, the town of
6,470 turns into a serious population of about
400,000 bikers and biker fans who come to the
annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. The city has
a contract with a portable toilet company,
which brings in about 110 units. The average
daily load on the wastewater treatment system
increases to just under 1 million gallons
per day, Nohava explained.
This facility is unique because it manages
this annual increase with natural wastewater
treatment and gravity flow. The city also has
minimized infiltration/inflow and encourages
employees to remain on the job by pro-viding rewards. Nohava has worked for the
city for 21 years.
Safe water
The Partnership for Safe Water is sponsored by
the American Water Works Association, the
Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies,
the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators,
EPA, the National Association of Water
Companies, and the American Water Works
Association Research Foundation.
The partnership is a voluntary initiative to
optimize treatment processes. To win the
Directors Award, water systems must complete
an application and a four-step self-assessment.
Then they must undergo a peer-review phase,
which examines their plant’s operational and
administrative capabilities.
Thirty-six other utilities/water treatment
plants received Phase III Directors Awards
in 2007.
Peter L. Jacob Water
Treatment Plant,
Champlain Water District
(CWD, Vermont)
At the Peter L. Jacob plant, water from Lake
Champlain’s Shelburne Bay undergoes pre-oxidation
and prechlorine treatment, coagulation/
flocculation/prefiltration, primary and secondary
disinfection, corrosion control, and
fluoridation. The plant treats an average of 10
million gallons per day (mgd).
Mike Barsotti, director of water quality and
production, has been working at the facility for
about 15 years. He and his team of nine operators
run the facility and the storage and transmission
system and monitor compliance with
the combined distribution system.
Barsotti said he attributes the success of
the plant to a “tenacious” staff that recognizes
the importance of the job and a heavy reliance
on technological process control. “Staff members
at CWD ensure they do not become
complacent by engaging in training and ensuring
clear communication between shifts,” he
said, adding that the staff is very experienced.
“We also use particle counters, turbidity
meters, and SCADA [supervisory control and
data acquisition].”
The plant has completed several improvement
projects outlined in its 20-year master
plan, including construction plans for a redundant
source water intake, a switch to monochloramines
to meet disinfection byproducts
regulations, and a SCADA upgrade for monitoring
and control of process and transmission/
storage.
In addition to the 10-year Directors Award,
Barsotti said Peter L. Jacob has been first in
Vermont to:
• optimize treatment for minimizing lead
solder leaching from home copper plumbing,
• use continual laser-particle counting technology,
and
• modify secondary disinfection using
monochloramines.
In the nation, the plant was first to retrofit
to full-scale adsorption clarification pretreatment
technology and obtain the “Excellence in
Water Treatment” award under the Partnership
for Safe Water.
Nottingham Water
Treatment Plant, City
of Cleveland (Ohio)
Division of Water
The Nottingham plant, which serves the eastern
part of Cleveland and its southeastern suburbs,
began operation in 1951. The plant pumps
directly into three service districts.
It uses conventional
processes—chemical
addition, mixing, coagulation,
flocculation, sedimentation,
filtration, and
disinfection.
Plant Manager Sam
Feinberg said that last year’s
improvements and EPA
approval will increase the
facility’s capacity from 103
mgd to 125 mgd. On average,
the plant produces 65
to 70 million gallons of
water a day.
“The success of [Nottingham]
can be attributed
to not only the financial
investment that the city of
Cleveland has made, but
the support and dedication
of Cleveland Water
Department support
managers and their staff
and the knowledgeable and dedicated employees
and professional management,” said Feinberg.
The plant operations are manned 24/7
by 14 operators and four managers.
From its facilities plan, the Nottingham
plant made improvements in 2006 by
installing new sedimentation basin collectors,
a standby generator system, and a backwash
clarifier. Ongoing projects include a new
administration building and automation of
the pumping process operation. The facility
plans to rehabilitate its raw water pump and
reservoir by 2010.
Alfred M. Smith Water
Treatment Facility,
Southern Nevada Water
Authority (Nevada)
Beginning operation in 1971, the Alfred Merritt
Smith Water Treatment Facility treats most
of Las Vegas Valley’s drinking water. The plant
is located on the shores of Lake Mead, which
provides its source water.
Recent improvements to the facility
increased the plant’s reliability and capacity.
The facility can treat up to 600 mgd. The
addition of ozone treatment in 2003 put the facility on the cutting-edge of water treatment
technology.
David Johnson, treatment manager, attributes
the plant’s success to “the commitment
of SNWA to provide the best water quality to
our customers. We really believe that, it’s
ingrained in our culture here,” he said. “It’s one
of our core missions.”
Part of meeting that mission was adopting
ozonation for disinfection. Johnson admitted
that ozonation is expensive, but “the primary
cost is installation,” he said, adding that
ozonation operating costs are comparable to
other disinfections methods. The technology
has given the plant better taste and odor control
and declines in disinfection byproducts
and solids loading.
While Johnson came to the water field two
years ago from chemical manufacturing, he
noted that some of the staff have been working
at the plant for more than 30 years.
The plant operates 24/7 with 16 staff members,
and its processes are completely SCADA
driven, Johnson explained.
“Unique to our operation is meeting the
demands of a very, very fast growing population,”
Johnson said. “Part of our challenge and
success has been to keep up with the growth and
still provide excellent water quality.”
The plant currently is working on installing
a new intake pumping station at a lower elevation
of the lake. Water levels are dropping
due to the drought, Johnson said, adding that
also is the reason the facility is exploring
groundwater resources from counties north
of the valley.
Santa Clara Valley
Urban Runoff Pollution
Prevention Program,
Santa Clara County, Calif.
EPA bestowed first-place honors on Santa Clara
Valley’s pollution prevention program for
stormwater management.
The nation’s first municipal separate stormwater
system (MS4) permittee, the Santa Clara
County program manages pollutants of concern,
virtually eliminates mercury, tracks pesticide use,
and mitigates effects of new development.
The Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution
Prevention Program is an association of
13 cities and towns in the Santa Clara Valley,
together with Santa Clara County and the Santa
Clara Valley Water District. Program partici-pants share a common permit to discharge
stormwater to South San Francisco Bay.
To reduce pollution in urban runoff to the
“maximum extent practicable,” the program
incorporates regulatory, monitoring, and outreach
measures aimed at improving the water
quality of South San Francisco Bay and the
streams of the Santa Clara Valley.
New in 2006, the Water Efficiency Leader
awards recognize those that provide leadership
and innovation in water-efficient products and
practices. The program enables EPA to document
“best management practices,” among
other things.
Southern Nevada
Water Authority’s
Water Smart Program
In the utilities/water districts
category, Southern Nevada
Water Authority’s Water Smart
Program captured the attention
of EPA. This program has
saved more than 20 billion gallons
of water a year since 2002.
The program includes waterefficient
landscaping, new
home developments, private
sector partnerships with landscape,
pool, and car wash
industries; rebates for smart
irrigation controllers, and an
annual trade event promoting
innovation in products and practices.
Not really a plant, per se
Innovation and common sense came together
in the Northwest Center for Engineering Science
and Technologies’ Maseeh College of Engineering
and Computer Science at Portland State
University. Not a plant in the typical sense, the
center is a gold-certified Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design building that also
serves as a water-efficient model for engineering
students.
The center has a rainwater harvesting system,
stormwater filtering systems, and geothermal
heating and cooling from underground
springs.
The rainwater harvesting system uses Oregon’s
average 38 inches of annual rainfall to supplement
the building’s overall water demand.
The system captures rain from approximately
half of the rooftop area and diverts a portion
through the rainwater harvesting system located
in the hydrology lab on the second floor.
Water is stored in a 1,000-gallon tank, filtered
through three separate steps, and undergoes
ultraviolet sterilization and chlorination
before being pumped to toilets and urinals on
the first floor. In addition to conserving drinking
water and reducing rainwater runoff, this
system contributes to the university’s engineering
curriculum. Students will use the rainwater
harvesting system to study water usage
rates, rain water quality, filtration methods, and
other aspects of environmental engineering in
an effort to advance this technology.
This article originally appeared in the 07/01/2007 issue of Environmental Protection.
About the Author
L.K. Williams is editor of Water and Wastewater News.