For several weeks, it was impossible to avoid discussion of the wastewater treatment plant southeast of town, and the accompanying odor.  Anyone who thought they may have been imaging it can rest assured that it was a known problem, and the city had been working on addressing it.  

The course of action that led to the increased smell was precipitated by a filter grate that had not been installed at the outset of the operation.  The missing grate led to the accumulation of enough sediment inside the ponds that ultimately created too much material for the equipment
to process.

At August’s City Council meeting, the issue was raised by councilmember Tyrell Neal, as well as Superintendent Tyler Webster.  The engineering firm who led the WWTP project was in attendance and part of the discussion.  All parties agreed that the situation was a problem that needed to be resolved sooner rather than later.  

In the long term, the equipment will need to be checked and any compromised or missing components will need to be replaced or repaired.  This will require the ponds to be drained, which they are scheduled to be in October as part of the regulations governing wastewater facilities.  The smallest of the ponds holds 27 million gallons, so the process of emptying them
is significant.

Once the pond is emptied and the equipment can be inspected and brought into peak working order, along with the intake grate, operations should be within normal parameters going forward.

Obviously, though, it isn’t October yet.  During the city council meeting, options for addressing the smell problem in a more immediate timeframe were discussed.  Superintendent Webster had been in communication with operators of other, similarly sized plants around the region and learned that on a short-term basis there were additive solutions that could quickly mitigate the majority of the problem.

Council approved the purchase and application of a 5 gallon bucket of the treatment in question, which were added to the pond system and seem to have had the desired effect.  While the solution is only temporary, it should last until the crew is able to properly adjust the equipment to work at maximum
efficiency again.

An additional issue was noted in the pivots that come out of the system.  The nature of the problem is somewhat unclear, as farmers in the location have not experienced animals chewing into the lines in the past, which would be solved by putting the wiring into conduits at a cost of $80K or so.  

One thing that came out of the discussion that can have an immediate impact is the realization that one of the major contributors to the clogging problem is the plumber’s nightmare—flushable wipes.  “They’re called flushable wipes, but don’t flush them!” Webster noted.  While flushable wipes are a huge boon to parents, especially when they are on the go or at a public restroom facility, they rarely live up to their billing.  Despite their marketing, these wipes are manufactured in such a way that they break down much more slowly than toilet paper, for instance.  While a completely clean system can process a small number of them in a reasonable period of time, a city’s worth of flushable wipes will overload the capacity quickly.  

Residents are advised to dispose of wipes—whether they are labeled “flushable” or not—in solid waste containers to be taken to the
landfill.   

This comes not many weeks after the city issued a water boil advisory for an unrelated issue.  In that case, the SCADA system did not send out an alert correctly , resulting in water pressure dropping below the limit necessary to prevent backflow.  The advisory was lifted soon after, and no issues were reported.

The treatment plant will be treated with chemicals to reduce the smell until it can be emptied and given an overhaul.  Until then, occasional upticks in odor are likely.

“This will not happen again on my watch,” Webster said, speaking to the mayor and council members.