The $95 million project to update the Davis wastewater treatment plant to meet more stringent state standards by 2017 remains on schedule.

Recently, the city of Woodland has again approached Davis with a deal to share wastewater treatment services through its own plant. City staff has projected that the regional option could result in savings of between $19 million and $39 million.

"While it’s a little distracting at one point, we think we have the time to give it a solid look without negatively impacting the current course the council has put us on," said Interim Public Works Director Bob Clarke. "And given the dollars, we think it’s a wise thing to do."

If the council approves the staff recommendations, Clarke would move ahead with a formal assessment of the alternative plan — work not to exceed $500,000 — and then come back to the council within six months so the policy-makers can weigh both alternatives.

Meanwhile, in case the alternative regional project does not work, the city will continue to pursue the secondary and tertiary part of the original project to ensure that Davis meets the state’s standards for wastewater discharge by 2017. Should the city not meet the discharge permit deadline in 2017, it is possible the city would incur potentially significant fines by the state. Putting off the first phase of the project, Clarke said, would not jeopardize that timeline.

The regional project likely would mean building infrastructure to pipe Davis’ waste north to the Woodland wastewater treatment plant, in addition to paying for the upgrades to that plant that would be needed to accommodate the extra volume.

According to the staff report, Davis also could pay $1 million in impact fees to Woodland on a yearly basis for 30 years.

The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board has issued a notice of violation against a South County sewage treatment plant after regulators said they found "areas of vulnerability at the plant."

The water board found several issues during visits this year to the South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District’s wastewater treatment facility in Oceano, including a lack of alarms on critical equipment, use of unqualified personnel to perform chlorine-handing operations, and the way biosolids are stored at the sewage plant.

Water board staff also anticipated the district would upgrade part of the treatment plant with equipment to ensure it could continue to operate uninterrupted if one item was out of operation for maintenance or repairs. To date, that work has not been completed, but is included in the district’s list of major projects.

In addition, the water board is concerned about three recent samples that tested higher than they should for fecal coliform bacteria, indicating that the disinfection process is not adequate. The notice of violation was issued Tuesday, about nine months after water board staff and a contract inspector for the U.S. EPA visited the treatment plant.

John Wallace, administrator of the sanitation district and president of San Luis Obispo-based Wallace Group, said he and the chief plant operator are in the process of analyzing the report and would comment later at a later date.

The notice of violation comes just a few months after the regional water board voted to issue a $1.1 million fine for a large sewage spill in December 2010, in which an estimated 674,400 gallons spilled into the plant and into an Oceano neighborhood following heavy rains. The sanitation district has appealed the penalty, arguing that the spill happened because of a series of unforeseen events beyond the district’s control.

The notice of violation requires the sanitation district to respond with a technical report by Feb. 1. Failure to do so could result in fines of $1,000 to $10,000 a day per the California Water Code.

Bids are due January 31, 2013 for the South Water Street Pump Station and Gravity Sewer project.

For more information go to: http://ct.mypublicnotices.com/PublicNotice.asp?Page=PublicNotice&AdId=3010831

Bids are due January 31, 2013 for Biological Nutrient Removal improvements at the Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board Wastewater Treatment Plant.

For more information go to: http://id.mypublicnotices.com/PublicNotice.asp?Page=PublicNotice&AdId=3017545

The Savanna City Council pressed ahead with plans to fund new projects this week, including the new wastewater treatment plant and new water meters.

Sharon Pepin, of Community Funding and Planning Services summarized possible funding avenues for the wastewater treatment plant and where the City was in pursuing these. She said that applications have been submitted to the United States Department of Commerce, the Economic Development Administration (EDA), the United States Department of Agriculture - Rural Development (USDA), and also to the Illinois EPA Clean Water Supply program.

Total project costs are estimated at $9,935,200.00. The City has not yet determined which source they will pursue. Additional information on how much grant funding might be potentially available from USDA will help the City determine which source to pursue.

The state Board of Public Works approved a $75.2 million grant to help pay for upgrading Baltimore's Patapsco sewage treatment plant, Maryland's second largest.

The facility, which can treat up to 63 MGD from the city and parts of Anne Arundel and Howard counties, is in the process of improving its removal of nitrogen, and other water quality problems in the harbor and the Chesapeake Bay.

An additional $5.4 million in state money is coming to Emmitsburg to help pay for the town's new $20 million wastewater treatment plant.

The Maryland Board of Public Works recently approved more than $8 million in grants to several localities to reduce pollution and improve the quality of water discharged from treatment plants. Emmitsburg was awarded a $5.1 million Bay Restoration Fund grant and a $340,000 Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Projects grant.

The town has to build a new plant to meet standards that are part of the state's effort to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. Emmitsburg has one of the 67 largest wastewater treatment plants that could not meet the new state standards. The plant was built in 1987 with a 40-year life expectancy. These grants are in addition to a previously awarded $487,000 grant from the Bay Restoration Fund.

When the new plant is operating, it will reduce the discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Upper Monocacy River, Potomac River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.

Construction should be completed by the end of 2014.

The city of East Jordan is considering an expansion of its wastewater treatment facilities in order to accommodate residential, commercial and industrial growth.

Recently, city commissioners learned the details of three options for expansion of the facilities. The options were presented by representatives of the Gaylord office of Wade Trim, a national engineering and design firm that has been studying the effectiveness and capacity of East Jordan's wastewater treatment over the past six years.

According to a report presented by Wade Trim, three possible expansion options for the city include expanding irrigation acreage at its Carson Road site, switching to a mechanical treatment plant to accommodate growth for unspecified industries, or to negotiate a capital contribution by Burnette Foods, a large food packaging factory in the city, to build a mechanical treatment plant which would accommodate the waste of both the city and the factory.

Successful negotiation with Burnette Foods would likely be East Jordan's best option for improving its facility in a cost-effective way, said Wade Trim Municipal Services Director Paul Repasky.

The wastewater treatment plant in East Jordan is currently operating at somewhere between 75 and 89 percent of its permitted capacity of about 75 million gallons a year of discharge.

The existing treatment system pumps wastewater to a plant at the city's industrial park where it is treated in two lined stabilization ponds. The water is stored during the winter, or, in the summer it is applied to the ground through five spray irrigation fields and five flood irrigation fields.

Four of the flood irrigation fields have not been used though in recent years because wastewater was not evenly dispersing and pools formed of partially treated, nutrient-dense water.

By 2018, Repasky projects the city will be at 95 percent of its permitted capacity. To reach that level would take modest levels of residential and commercial growth, or a spike of 12,400 gallons per day in discharge, and significant industrial growth is not currently a viable option with the available capacity of the plant.

Expansion of the city's current facility would be the least expensive alternative, said Repasky, but would not accommodate industrial users unless they pretreat their wastewater to domestic strength. It would restore some of the plant's capacity for treating residential and commercial waste, but not the same volume as constructing a mechanical treatment plant.

Switching to a mechanical treatment plant would allow for growth in all three sectors. Spray pumping of partially treated sewage into fields would be eliminated through this method because the wastewater would be fully treated by the time it reached the ground.

But construction costs would be significantly more than would an expansion of current facilities. Because of that, Wade Trim's official recommendation to East Jordan on the matter is to "enter substantive negotiations with Burnette Foods regarding their willingness to make capital contributions to construct a new wastewater treatment plant that is capable of treating the high-strength wastewater from their existing and anticipated production lines."

Burnette Foods currently has one production line of its own that runs at 65,000 to 85,000 gallons per day of discharge. The company would like to expand and construct a second production line at 100,000 to 165,000 gallons per day.

A joint venture creating new infrastructure could be beneficial to both the company and the city, said Repasky.

The City of Hattiesburg will host a meeting with landowners interested in being involved in an expansion of the city’s wastewater treatment system.

One of two options considered to alleviate the strain on the overburdened wastewater treatment facility is land application. Land application utilizes soil as a natural filter to remove nitrogen and phosphorous from wastewater while improving soil with nutrients.

The city issued a request for proposals earlier this year for vendors and landowners interested in having their property considered for land application.

Before being approved, prospective land will be subject to soil and geological testing, as well as a cost-analysis, to study its suitability for use in the program, City Engineer Burt Kuyrkendall said.

The EPA has released its final nitrogen discharge permit for Exeter’s wastewater treatment plant. The permit calls for a limit of 3 milligrams per liter, the same amount as a draft permit previously released. Exeter’s treatment plant discharges into the Squamscott River, which empties into Great Bay.

The town now has to decide if it wants to remain in the Great Bay Municipal Coalition with Portsmouth, Dover, and Rochester and possibly fight the permit, or build a new wastewater treatment plant. It has been estimated that it would cost $36 million to build a new plant to meet the 3-milligram limit.

When Mike Broyles saw a wall of water from Raritan Bay engulfing the Union Beach sewage treatment plant, the first thing he did was reach for the telephone.

"The entire treatment plant is underwater ... unknown impact to public health ... discharging to Raritan Bay," Broyles, the plant’s superintendent, told state environmental officials the night Hurricane Sandy struck, according to an incident report.

In a nightmare scenario the state’s aging infrastructure was not prepared to handle, the same kind of devastation that took place up and down the New Jersey coast, allowing more than a billion gallons of untreated sewage to pour into the state’s waterways over the course of several days.

State officials and environmental experts say the cost to the environment could have been far greater had the raw sewage been released near drinking supplies, or if the storm had occurred during the warm, tourist-heavy summer months.

The cost to repair the damage and replace facilities will come to hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to complete. And in the near future, a torrential rain could pose a flooding problem to plants not completely back on their feet.

One of the first steps will be determining how to rebuild the plants to withstand future storms of this magnitude.

So far, Gov. Chris Christie has not provided a detailed breakdown of his request for almost $37 billion in federal disaster aid, including the cost of repairing and fortifying sewage treatment plants. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo estimated the cost at about $1.1 billion.

The administration says it has not measured or estimated how much raw or partly treated sewage made its way into state waterways. The state Department of Environmental Protection says part of the aid request is for helping assess environmental damage.

Passaic Valley Sewage Commission and the Middlesex County Utilities Authority took the brunt of the storm. Twelve-foot storm surges overtook Passaic Valley’s 172-acre plant in Newark, even flooding an area that stretches about 40 feet underground. With no power for three days, the plant was unable to treat its sewage and dumped "hundreds of millions" of gallons of raw waste into New York Harbor, Passaic Valley’s executive director, Michael DeFrancisci, said.

Almost two months later, the commission’s offices for administration, security and other buildings remain in shambles. The agency, which also lost 78 vehicles and had 20 elevators destroyed, says it has already spent $15 million on short-term repairs.

DeFransisci said the commission brought in ten centrifuges — at a cost of $30,000 a day to operate each one — to help "dewater" sewage sludge. Overall, it will cost about $200 million to repair the damage, he said, or about $50 million more than the commission’s annual operating budget.

DeFrancisci said the big question is whether the federal government will pay 75 or 90 percent of the cost.

The state’s lawmakers in Washington are pushing for swift passage of President Obama’s $60.4 billion relief package for the affected states. Michele Siekerka, an assistant commissioner with the state environmental department, said his agency plans to set up a revolving fund to help treatment plants get low-interest bridge loans.

At the Middlesex County Utilities Authority, the treatment plant sits 50 feet above sea level and was out of the storm’s path. But that height also requires pumping stations to push the sewage to the plant, and they were not so fortunate, said Richard Fitamant, the authority’s executive director. "There was complete devastation," Fitamant said, noting that "equipment had to be refurbished, and Band-Aids had to be put in place."

It wasn’t until Dec. 8 that the authority’s three pumping stations could handle the 110 MGD of sewage.

Until February, when repairs are completed at the Sayreville plant — the system’s largest — a heavy rain could again cripple the system for a time.

The Monmouth County Bayshore Outfall Authority does not treat sewage, but does help the Bayshore Regional Sewage Authority and the Middletown Sewage Authority dispose of what they treat.

The flow of sewage is managed with two 4.5 million-gallon retention ponds, both of which were heavily damaged when Raritan Bay overflowed, Edward Tuberion Jr., the plant foreman, said.

Bob Fischer, executive director of Bayshore Regional Sewage Authority, said the storm left $10 million in damages to its Union Beach facility.

The New York State Environmental Facilities Corp Board has approved a grant of up to $2 million, along with a no interest loan of $1.6 million for improvements to Norwich’s wastewater treatment plant.

The city intends to replace equipment used to filter wastewater. New rotating biological contactors, where microorganisms dissolve waste as a secondary treatment process will be installed as part of the $4.36 million in improvements.

Norwich Mayor Joseph Maiurano said that the grant and no interest loan is saving the city about $4 million over what was projected over 4 years ago.

The Holtville City Council has moved forward on the wastewater treatment plant improvements project. Since May 18, 2010 the city has been operating their wastewater treatment plant under a Cease and Desist Order because of the aging treatment plant not being able to meet state regulations of a final ammonia effluent limit of 1.9 mg.

The City has until August 17, 2014 to make improvements to the existing treatment plant in order to meet the new state requirements. This is an estimated $12 million project. But Holtville is currently not on schedule to achieve the milestones illustrated by the amended Cease and Desist Order because a technical agreement between the City and Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) has been delayed.

It was requested that Holtville proceed with preparing of the project request for proposal for design service for the project.

This project is on such a tight timeline that the City Council voted to move forward with the designs plans in order to meet the deadlines.

The city of Morristown has undertaken a complete review of the condition of the Wastewater Treatment Plant at Turkey Creek.

The report describes the history of the facility, how the process works and what can be done to make the plant function at a higher level. The report includes recommendations for changes to the treatment process, particularly with the anaerobic digesters. There are also recommendations for rehabilitation of the electrical systems and back-up power.

In addition to this assessment of the plant, the report includes a recent odor assessment conducted at the plant to determine what areas might be modified to reduce odor generation.

City of Laredo officials and administrators were on hand to celebrate the groundbreaking ceremony for the soon to be expanded South Laredo Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Present at the official groundbreaking ceremony among others were City of Laredo Utilities Director Tomas Rodriguez and Utilities Wastewater Superintendent Jose Chavarria.

Gov. Bob McDonnell's proposal to spend more than $200 million on cleaning Virginia's waters may contribute $5 million to Hopewell's Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility modernization project.

McDonnell proposed to fund water quality programs statewide with a total of almost $217 million - with $200 million from bonds and nearly $17 million in cash reserves. About $101 million would go toward localities to help reduce pollution from sewage plants and upgrade their systems over the coming years.

McDonnell's proposal is pending approval by the General Assembly.

With $40 million, a bulk of these funds would go to Richmond; Lynchburg would receive $19 million to modernize its sewer system, while Hopewell will receive $5 million.

The $70 million modernization project includes adding additional tanks for nitrogen removal.

Engineering for the modernization project will begin in 2013, and construction is scheduled to begin in 2014, to be concluded by fall of 2017.

The HRWTF has previously pioneered in the removal of nitrogen from wastewater with algae, creating a by-product for fuel production. A test project was launched in 2009, funded by a $650,000 federal grant.

This new technology is a more cost-saving, green approach to nutrient removal, which results in cleaner waters in Virginia's rivers and in the Chesapeake Bay.

At a recent meeting Regina’s City Council signed off on a report which clarified that the cost of the new wastewater treatment plant is expected to be higher than they first thought. With inflation, the price on the new plant could go from $150 million to $207 million or more, according to city staff.

The city decided to build a new plant in 2008 because of new requirements for water treatment dictated by the federal government. But the federal government has not come up with money even though their regulatory changes made the expensive upgrade necessary.

Wandzura says there are three elements we need to do a better job with. "The most important things to us are the requirements around phosphorus discharge for algae growth downstream and nitrogen discharge which has acute toxicity for fish species," Wandzura explained.

The city clarifies that about $125 to $135 million will need to be borrowed to build the plant.

Aquatech has developed Aqua-EMBR enhanced membrane bioreactor for wastewater treatment.

The Aqua-EMBR system consists of an activated sludge extended aeration biological treatment process and an Ultrafiltration (UF) membrane system for the separation of activated sludge from treated effluent. Aqua-EMBR is an external MBR system; the UF membrane is positioned outside the bioreactor tank, rather than submerged in the bioreactor tank or in the downstream membrane tank.

The UF membrane modules are arranged vertically and aerated continuously at the bottom. Mixed liquor is transported via "air lift pump" action through the module, while the membrane feed/recirculation pump is only used to overcome the hydraulic losses and maintain a relatively constant flow of mixed liquor through the membrane. This innovative design reduces much of the feed pumping energy requirement needed to maintain high crossflow velocity. Permeate flow, which is inside-out from the membrane modules, is collected by a permeate pump.

Because no membrane components are submerged in the biological mixed liquor, the biological and membrane systems can be operated and optimized independently. The membrane operation is automatically controlled.

With its tight membrane pore size (nominal/maximum 30 nm/50 nm), Aqua-EMBR produces high effluent quality – an important factor for reuse purposes and future regulations.

Applications for Aqua-EMBR include wastewater treatment or reclamation in new industrial and municipal wastewater treatment plants or in existing plants undergoing upgrades.

Aqua-EMBR offers several benefits over submerged MBR systems, which already present advantages over conventional activated sludge systems. Because the Aqua-EMBR system has no membrane tank, it can be built more quickly. Installed as one or more skids on a flat concrete slab, the system eliminates the need for complex civil engineering and lowers the risk for contractors due to construction delays caused by weather conditions, environmental or other local uncertainties.

In addition, the Aqua-EMBR system offers an operator-friendly working environment. Operators do not see, smell or come in contact with the biosludge, nor do they work on top of open membrane tanks where the air could contain harmful aerosols. Should maintenance be required, Aqua-EMBR's membrane modules can be removed or replaced without any contact with the biosludge.

Another significant benefit is the Aqua-EMBR's higher operating flux – approximately 50 percent higher than submerged systems. Because 50 percent less surface area of membrane is needed per unit volume of permeate production, the low membrane cost per unit volume filtrate means savings in capital (CAPEX) and operating costs (OPEX). Maintenance costs, such as labor and chemicals, are also reduced.

One of the first applications for Aqua-EMBR was treatment of effluent generated from a chemical manufacturing plant where Aquatech successfully commissioned a 50 m³/day capacity plant. After proper sludge acclimatization, it was possible to reduce chemical oxygen demand (COD) by 85 percent and consistently achieve a reduction of more than 95 percent of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD).

United Water and KKR announced the initiation of a partnership for water and wastewater system operations in the City of Bayonne, NJ. Operations will begin in December. The agreement was approved by the Bayonne Municipal Utilities Authority (BMUA) and by numerous state agencies.

The innovative model is a joint venture between United Water and KKR to acquire a 40-year water and wastewater concession from the BMUA. Under the agreement, the joint venture has made an initial payment to the BMUA of $150 million, which will be used to eliminate the BMUA’s existing debt and improve its finances. The joint venture has further committed to funding another $157 million into the system over the life of the contract. KKR, which made the investment through its infrastructure fund, will fund 90 percent of the joint venture with United Water.

The BMUA will maintain ownership of the water and wastewater system and will provide oversight of the partnership and its adherence to high quality standards and customer service performance. In addition, the BMUA will maintain control of rates charged to users, which will be guided by a formula in the agreement. United Water will operate the system for the 40-year term under an operations and maintenance agreement with the joint venture.

This investment in Bayonne’s infrastructure will lead to improved service reliability and water quality while maintaining rate stability. The funds will be used to upgrade water systems and to help ease pressure on municipal balance sheets, freeing the city to invest in other services. The initial capital investment will provide for the addition of highly accurate wireless water metering and other monitoring systems, such as GIS, SCADA and CMMS, which help reduce water loss from leakage, prioritize pipe replacement and improve operational efficiency.

You can track all the water chemical bids in the new database in the report at:

https://www.mcilvainecompany.com/Universal_Water_Chemical/Subscriber/uwcDB/TofC.htm

Here are the titles added since the last update.

Agawam, MA – Springfield Water & Sewer Commission

http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/Universal_Water_Chemical/Subscriber/uwcDB/totentry.asp?ref=2154

Chester, PA – Delaware County Regional Water Quality Control Authority (DELCORA)

http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/Universal_Water_Chemical/Subscriber/uwcDB/totentry.asp?ref=2157

Johnsonburg, PA

http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/Universal_Water_Chemical/Subscriber/uwcDB/totentry.asp?ref=2153

Tempe, AZ

http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/Universal_Water_Chemical/Subscriber/uwcDB/totentry.asp?ref=2149

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