SHELBY – The city of Shelby’s Wastewater Treatment Plant is slated for major renovations next year in order to continue treating nearly 700 million gallons of the city’s waste water annually.
Shelby City Council unanimously passed a resolution at its Dec. 5 meeting to allow the mayor to advertise for bids and enter into a contract for the Wastewater Treatment Plant improvements project. The city has contracted to CT Consultants to prepare plans and specifications for the $7.2 million project.
According to the resolution, the improvements are a requirement by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in order to comply with the city’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. According to Wastewater Treatment Plant Superintendent Charlton Brown, the improvements are long overdue.
“Overall we’re going to have better efficiency, we’re going to be getting air to our tanks a lot better,” Brown said. “The energy costs are going to see a lot more savings. We really looked into what equipment we could get that’s the best bang for our buck.”
Brown and Shelby’s Director of Utilities John Ensman have been working towards upgrading the Wastewater Treatment Plant since 2012. Many of the plant’s equipment is in need of replacing, with pumps still in use from 1953, 1977 and 1988. The last time the Waste Water Treatment Plant saw any upgrades at all was 1988.
“It says a lot about the manufacturer, and also the operators prior to us keeping the maintenance and operation up to date,” said Brown, who has been at the plant for 10 years.
The Wastewater Treatment Plant processes an average of 1.9 million gallons of waste water per day. On average, 57 million gallons are treated every month, with a total yearly average of 690 million gallons.
Wastewater is made up of human wastes, food wastes and chemicals from residential homes, farms, hospitals and businesses. It is generally comprised of organic materials with a small percentage of inorganic materials.
Wastewater must be treated to remove organic and inorganic matter that could cause pollution to the environment, as well as removing pathogenic (disease-causing) organisms to protect public health. The city of Shelby’s Waste Water Treatment Plant uses a pure biologic process that uses microorganisms to break down solid and accelerate decomposition.
The function of the Wastewater Treatment Plant is similar to the functions of the human body, Brown explained.
“We have special equipment that will actually break down solids,” he said. “When you eat a hamburger and chew it up, you’re breaking those solids down and it goes to your stomach where it starts to digest. Our solids go into a digester unit and start to break down through microbiology.”
Two streams eventually come from the Wastewater Treatment Plant – a “wet” stream of treated water that flows back into the Black Fork River, and a “solid” stream that goes into a landfill. Brown stated the treated water that flows back into the Black Fork River is actually cleaner than the Black Fork itself, and therefore better for the environment.
The city of Shelby also has a Water Treatment Plant; similar in name, but vastly different in function. Brown explained the Water Treatment Plant is for the consumption of water, while the Waste Water Treatment Plant is not.
“One is to treat one product that comes from your bathrooms, comes here, and we treat it from EPA standards to turn that one product into another product,” Brown said.
Ensman anticipates updates to the Wastewater Treatment Plant to begin in late spring of 2017. The contractor will have 18 months to complete the project from the time the contract is signed, and according to Ensman will determine their work schedule based on what causes minimal impact to plant operations.
New pumps are a top priority when upgrades to the plant begin, as well as adding a third clarifier and a new digester cover, and replacing the chlorine gas system with an ultraviolet system. Currently chlorine gas is used to kill the pathogenic (disease-causing) organisms before the water is added back to the Black Fork River.
“Chlorine kills everything, good bugs (organisms) and bad bugs,” Brown said. “It’s a cheap way of treatment, but it’s just so deadly to work with. If we had a leak – which we’ve never had an accident – chlorine gas is 2.5 times heavier than air, and when the wind blows it would kill plant and animal life. It’s difficult to work with, and it’s something we wanted to veer off from.”
Alternatively, an ultraviolet system would keep the “good bugs” in the water and simply sterilize the “bad bugs,” Brown said.
“Bad bugs would be the pathogenic organisms that cause viruses,” he said. “These bugs have a short life cycle, so we would treat them here and before they go out to the Black Fork their life cycle would be over with, and they would die off because they can’t reproduce.”
In addition to the plant upgrades, the city will also be building a septage receiving station on the premises of the Wastewater Treatment Plant. Ensman explained septage comes from septic tanks, and is not included in the septic system that feeds to the plant.
“It’s going to be a revenue stream for us because we’re going to be charging septage contractors to bring the septage in, they will be charged a fee for the disposal of our waste,” Ensman said.
Ensman estimated the septage receiving station would generate approximately $50,000 in yearly revenue for the Wastewater Treatment Plant. According to Brown, Richland County does not currently have a septage receiving station even though a number of residents use septic tanks.
“It’s a different kind of product more than just sewage,” Brown said. “Septage is from your septic tank; it’s anaerobic, or air-hating bacteria, and aerobic is air-loving bacteria.
“Basically we’re getting dead material in our plant, so what we have to do is aerate it and mix it with the healthy stuff we get from the sewers so we can put it through the digester process, and that takes time.”
Brown stated the waste from local septic tanks currently is transported to a Bellville farm for disposal. Once the Shelby septage receiving station is operational, all septic tank waste will be transported to the Shelby station.
“The EPA encouraged us to do this for the health and welfare of the surrounding communities as well as our community,” Brown said.
