Date nears to fire up plant
Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/65369/
From dealing with bowling balls and couch cushions that can block sewer pipes to handling fine hair and grease that can clog machinery, Fayetteville’s new West Side Wastewater Treatment Plant is ready — or almost ready.
The new plant is scheduled to receive wastewater flow by the end of the month and “ maybe a few days early, ” said Lane Crider, vice president of special projects with McGoodwin, Williams and Yates, the firm that engineered the project.
“ At last. At last, ” Ward 4 Alderman Lioneld Jordan said on Monday at the end of a tour Crider led for council members.
“ I’m glad we’re seeing the end of the road, ” Ward 2 Alderman Kyle Cook said.
“ Finally, ” said Cyrus Young, a former council member who worked on the early stages of acquiring the land for the long-controversial project.
It will take about 90 days to gradually build up the bacteria population before the switch between the new West Side plant and the Paul R. Noland Wastewater Treatment Plant now in use is complete.
Cook, Jordan and Young trekked with Crider through buildings and past equipment and tanks built to transform the wastewater and sewage of up to 115, 000 people into water pure enough to flow back into the Illinois River and pure enough to drink.
“ We want the effluent to meet all limits starting from the very first month, ” said David Jurgens, water and wastewater director.
Effluent is the liquid that flows out of the treatment plant.
Crider described the process that turns wastewater into water.
“ The flow comes into the inlet facilities, where it’s screened, ” he said. “ It goes through the grit and scum units, where all that is taken out. It comes around to where it’s split to any of the four biological nutrient removal tanks. From those tanks it goes into the clarifiers. Out of the clarifiers into the filters. From filters it goes into (ultraviolet ) disinfection, then to the post aeration basin, where we increase the oxygen levels to the point that it is almost saturation before it gets discharged. ”
The entire treatment process can take 20 to 30 days, depending on the level of flows through the plant.
“ The heart of it is biological, ” Crider said.
Most of the cleaning is done with bacteria, and ultraviolet light is used instead of chlorine to disinfect the water. A series of gradually smaller perforated rollers and belts press water out of the sludge.
Billy Ammons, regional business manager for OMI, which operates the Noland plant, described the presses as “ very similar to an old wringer washer. ”
The plant discharges into Goose Creek which flows directly into the Illinois River.
“ The limits are so tight on this plant, ” Crider said.
Because there is so little distance between the discharge and the river, Fayetteville will be allowed only 10 parts per million of suspended solids in the effluent discharge.
Dirty-to-clean is not enough.
Along the convoluted wastewater-to-water journey of the channel monster (like a giant garbage disposal ), bacteria, polymers, big fans, perforated presses, trucks full of sludge and hundreds of blue bulbs of ultraviolet light, the goal is to eliminate odor.
What can be covered is.
The odorous air, like the sewage, is scrubbed and cleaned before it is released. Stainless steel ductwork, aluminum covers, aerating fans, specialized bacteria — often called bugs — and silo-like tanks of carbon filters are among the city’s weapons in the battle against odor.
“ I’m real glad we stayed hooked on the odor control, ” Jordan said. “ It’s very important to the people who live in this area. ”
Young said he’d wait for the shakedown but he plans to do his own test.
“ I’ll be out here to smell it, ” he said.
He said people may not immediately appreciate the decisions and the equipment at the West Side plant.
“ People will be glad later, ” he said.