When wastewater leaves a business or home, it enters the sewer pipes or heads to a septic tank and leach field. What happens from there? What are the stages of wastewater treatment and what can you do to have an efficient, effective wastewater treatment plant as you consider each of these stages?

Stage 1: Screening

Before anything else happens, wastewater and hauled septage have to go through screening. This is where the things that shouldn’t ever be flushed or allowed into sewer lines are filtered and removed. This includes items like a child’s toy, a plastic tampon application, rags, plastic wrappers, grease clumps, and pieces of wood. They are raked from the filters, rinsed to remove any waste products, and pressed to get out as much water as possible.

Items removed in the screening process go to landfills. The remaining wastewater moves to the second stage of wastewater treatment.

Stage 2: Grit Removal

Grit removal is a process where fine, gritty particles are removed from the wastewater. It includes particles like coffee grounds, sand, and gravel. They are removed by a pump after the grit settles on the floor of a grit chamber. From there, it gets hauled to a landfill. The remaining wastewater goes to clarifiers.

Stage 3: Primary Settling/Clarifying

At this point, the wastewater is rid of grit and trash. It sits in a circular tank to settle. Sludge sinks to the bottom of the tank, and fats float and collect on the surface. The wastewater between the two layers leaves the tank.

The fat layer is skimmed periodically from the surface, while the sludge is pumped out. Chemicals are introduced to start breaking down the phosphorus. 

Stage 4: Aeration

Aeration is the key step in processing wastewater. Pumps add air to the wastewater to help aerate it while microorganisms begin to digest the remaining sludge and pollutants and create a mixture of water, nitrogen, and cell tissue. 

Stage 4B: Activated Sludge

The remaining sludge goes through treatments of its own. To start, it is skimmed from the aeration tanks. Water is removed from the solids and returned to the start of the wastewater treatment process.

The thickened sludge mixes with primary sludge and is pumped to a primary digester. There, it’s heated and allowed to compost for over a month using anaerobic bacteria to help break it down. Pollutants from the sludge are digested by the bacteria and converted to carbon dioxide and methane gas, and water. 

After the bacteria has done its job, the remaining sludge is moved to a gravity belt where it’s mixed with a polymer that helps absorb all of the water. Water drains into a basin where it has to be slowly mixed back to the beginning of the wastewater treatment process because of its high ammonia content. Too much all at once creates problems.

The sludge goes to storage tanks where it sits for upwards of a year before going into tanker trucks to be spread at approved sites, such as fields and forest lands, to provide nutrients the soil needs for optimal plant health.

Stage 5: Secondary Settling/Clarifying

Wastewater is pumped to secondary clarifiers. At this point, the wastewater is 90% of the way to the finished product. Activated sludge is continually pumped out as it settles and goes back through Stage 4B.

Stage 6: Filtration

Now that the wastewater is cleaned. It’s filtered through some type of media. Different wastewater treatment plants rely on different types of filters. Some may use activated carbon filtration, some might rely on coconut fibers, and some use polyester. If any particles are on the filter, they’re washed and returned to Stage 1.

Stage 7: Disinfection

The filtered wastewater is now mixed with chemicals to kill any remaining bacteria or exposed to UV disinfection. Water is tested throughout the process to make sure it meets the required levels before it’s released to the area river, lake, pond, or water treatment plant for reuse.

Stage 8: Aeration

Some wastewater districts add one more step to aerate the cleaned wastewater to make sure it has the correct oxygen levels. Every wastewater treatment plan has requirements listed in its permit. Failure to complete the steps needed to bring the water quality to those levels can lead to hefty fines.

Consider Your Options for Hauled Septage

When a wastewater district also accepts septage from residences and businesses that are not on a sewer line, a septage acceptance plant is necessary. This is the station where trucks will pull up and pump out their tanks with the septage they’ve pumped out of septic tanks. 

Hauled septage is raked to remove any trash or grease clumps. The remaining wastewater and sludge get pumped to the screening stage of wastewater treatment. As septage haulers collect money from businesses and consumers and pay the wastewater district from those proceeds, you’ll want to have a computer system set up to track who is bringing in the septage, how much they dropped off, and bill them accordingly. 

Tips For Improving Effectiveness and Efficiency

You have to have a wastewater treatment plant that effectively cleans water in the most efficient manner possible. How do you ensure you’re cleaning the water effectively, avoiding raw sewage releases, and keeping costs down for the members of your wastewater district?

1. Automation Eases Guesswork

Do you struggle to keep up with the flow rates at your facility? Do you have some days where your employees struggle with higher flow rates than estimated, so they have to constantly speed up or slow down pumps and motors? Or, do they run the motors at high speeds as a preventative measure, even when it’s unnecessary? It’s not an ideal way to operate your wastewater treatment plan.

If there’s heavy rain and your wastewater treatment plant and stormwater runoff are linked, it’s easy to flood and require raw sewage to be released. It’s not ideal for the environment. It’s also easily addressed by adding automation to your plant.

2. Upgrade Older Equipment

Some of the easiest changes to your plant that will result in cost-saving measures are to look at the aeration system you use. Older pumps and motors can be upgraded to more energy-efficient models that do the job better while requiring less electricity.

3. Consider Solar and Wind Power

It’s estimated that all of the municipal wastewater treatment plants in the U.S. use about $2 billion in electricity each year. Upwards of 40% of a plant’s operating costs come from the plant’s electricity consumption.

While it does cost money to establish solar or wind power systems at your plant, the savings over time are worthwhile. After a 10-acre solar panel farm was placed near the Moccasin Bend wastewater treatment plant in Tennessee and upgrades were made to some of the plant’s equipment, the plant’s power consumption dropped by $1.4 million per year. 

4. Heat With Methane

A wastewater treatment plant ends up with methane being produced as part of the process. Why not use that methane gas to heat the plant? You’ll eliminate bills for propane, oil, natural gas, or electric heat during the winter months. 

Lakeside Equipment has decades of experience in wastewater treatment designs and equipment that boost your plant’s efficiency and keep up with changes in the flow rates during unexpected storms. We’ve been around since 1928 and provide you with an experienced engineer to design a system that meets your municipality’s needs and budget. 

From final design to installation and operation, our field engineers ensure your system is optimized to do everything you expect. Talk to our wastewater experts about the SharpBNR control system that reduces electricity costs and boosts your plant’s reliability. You can pair it with a SCADA system for optimal performance throughout your wastewater treatment plant.

Have you seen all of the TikToks where wastewater treatment plant operators say that the only thing people should be flushing or putting down their drains are the three P’s: Poop, Pee, and Paper. It’s all part of a push to educate people and stop some of the problems faced by wastewater treatment plants.

FOG (fats, oil, and grease) are one of the biggest problems in wastewater treatment. Whether it’s inadvertent or deliberate, people pour cooking oil, meat drippings, sauces, melted butter/margarine/shortening, and dairy products down their sinks.

It may seem fine, but in a sewer line or piping, the oils cling to the sides of the pipe and mix with other items that get flushed, such as baby wipes, tampon applicators, condoms, plastic wrappers, etc. It creates a fatberg that can stop the flow of wastewater in a sewer.

Wastewater treatment plants have to have a plan in place to handle this problem. In addition to educational efforts, fats, oil, and grease screening is one of the essential steps. Explore the different ways your district should be handling FOG in wastewater.

The Importance of Keeping FOG Out of Wastewater

While the average person may not think much of the chicken grease that goes down their drain, it becomes a nightmare over time to wastewater districts. In 2020, a 1.65-ton fatberg was pulled from a sewer in Leeds, England.

That’s not even the largest in known history. A 130-ton fatberg was found blocking a sewer tunnel in London back in 1997. It measured around 820 feet long and took workers around a week to remove it, costing the city around £1 million to do so.

That’s still not the largest. Birmingham, England, was found to have a massive fatberg that weighed over 300 tons and was more than half a mile long. Thames Water spent an estimated $1 million to remove it over a span of weeks.

If you still want to hear about even bigger fatbergs, Cardiff, Wales, had an 881-ton fatberg in the city sewers. The fatberg was estimated to be the equivalent of 133 African elephants in size and caused other sewer lines to collapse.

The United Kingdom isn’t the only country dealing with fatbergs. In the U.S., In Baltimore, a fatberg created a sewage overflow that led to almost 1.2 million gallons of raw sewage being released into Jones Falls. The fatberg was blocking 85% of the sewer main.

A year later, Detroit’s Macomb Public Works discovered a fatberg that was 100 feet long and more than 10 feet wide. To educate the public, the city put a section of the fatberg on display at the Michigan Science Center. What was in this fatberg? Lots of syringes, candy wrappers, and tampon applicators.

Not only can fatbergs block the flow of wastewater and lead to overflows and EPA fines, but they can also destroy lines in a sewer system and require costly replacement. Plus, the amount of manpower, overtime, and equipment needed to break up and remove sections of fatbergs is costly. It can drastically drive up costs, and those increases can be passed on to people within a sewer district.

Start by Educating the People in Your District

Ads on local news stations are one way to educate people in your district. You should also look at social media as a powerful tool to spread the message. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and even Reddit can help you get the word out. Pictures or videos of fatbergs and FOG deposits at your wastewater treatment plant present vivid images to show what happens.

To prevent it, whether they’re at work or home, people need to stop washing food waste down the drain. Use a paper towel to wipe as much food, oil, and grease out of a pan or dish before washing it. Grease can go into an unused glass jar or can and then be disposed of in the trash.

Restaurants should have grease traps installed to capture FOG and keep it from going into the sewer lines. Grease traps may be mandatory in your city or state, so any restaurant owner should make sure a grease trap is installed and maintained properly. Captured oils can get hauled away to plants that convert them into biodiesel and products like candles and soap.

In addition to FOG precautions, area residents need to make sure they’re not flushing improper items. Flyers reminding people what should and shouldn’t get flushed is useful. An updated online guide is also important. Make it clear that items like flushable wipes and flushable cat litter that claim to be flushable are definitely not something that should go down the toilet instead of into the trash.

Your Wastewater Treatment Plant Needs Screens That Remove Scum, Sludge, and Grease

Lakeside Equipment is an expert in wastewater treatment equipment that removes FOG. Wastewater screens can be useful in getting grease, oil, and fat out of the wastewater where it can then be sent to a landfill, composted, or incinerated.

A Lakeside Raptor Fine Screen is one of the best options and is trouble-free for many years. Maintenance needs are minimal. It completes these steps while screening FOG.

When wastewater levels reach the designated point, the Raptor Fine Screen’s rake arm starts moving to capture scum, sludge, and FOG.
After it’s completed its revolution, the material that’s been raked goes into a collection area.
The rake arm reverses direction and goes through a hinged comb to clean out any trapped materials.
The waste materials then get pushed using a screw conveyor through the transport tube to be washed, compacted, dewatered, and moved to a container to be transported to another facility or area.

The Raptor Fine Screen has optional features that may suit your wastewater treatment plant’s needs. One of the most important is weather protection which protects against temperatures as low as -13ºF. You can also purchase it in a pre-engineered tank if necessary.

The stainless-steel design doesn’t rust or corrode easily. It’s especially good at removing debris and grease that can plug up pipes and impact flow rates. FOG and other debris can be dewatered, washed, and compacted to reduce the weight by as much as 67% and overall volume gets cut in half, which lowers the amount of material you have to dispose of.

When your district is experiencing high levels of fats, oil, and grease throughout the year or seasonal increases in fatty foods like fried turkey or prime rib roasts, be prepared for the increase in FOG. Heighten educational messages and make sure your wastewater treatment plant is prepared to remove FOG using wastewater screens.

Lakeside Equipment is an expert in FOG removal. Talk to us to discuss your district’s problems and we’ll work with you to come up with the best options.

What is inorganic material in wastewater? Human waste, food scraps, and plants are organic in nature. They break down easily. Some materials that make their way into wastewater are not organic and do not decompose. Inorganic materials include soaps, nitrates, chlorides, phosphates, heavy metals, etc.

Some of the inorganics found in wastewater include cadmium, copper, lead, and mercury (heavy metals). They can come from older homes with copper piping and lead solder. There are non-metallic salts like arsenic and selenium. They can come from manufacturing plants, improperly disposed cleaning products, paints, and items like deicing products that are picked up in stormwater run-off when sewers and stormwater drains are connected.

Wastewater inorganics require careful removal to get them out of the wastewater before it’s released back to bodies of water or water treatment plants for community water supplies. What are the best ways to remove them?

Start With Trash and Screen Rakes

Wastewater is 99.9% water and 0.1% organic matter, inorganic matter, and microorganisms.  It’s that 0.1% that wastewater treatment plants must remove before releasing it to rivers, ponds, lakes, or oceans or a water treatment plant that serves a community.

Some inorganic materials in wastewater may be large enough to remove using screens. This includes things that never should have been flushed or allowed to get down the sink, such as plastic tampon applicators, jewelry, condoms, toys, and plastic wrappers.

A screen will capture those items before they get into the wastewater treatment stages. Trash rakes remove them from the screens to ensure wastewater flow isn’t impeded. Screens can start with a large mesh and get smaller to ensure items of varying sizes are captured in this process. All of these items can then go to landfills for proper disposal.

Sequencing Batch Reactors Are Essential in a Wastewater Treatment Plan

A Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) offers a continuous feed process to help with the removal of nitrogen and phosphorus. Using aeration, oxygen helps break down organics. As the wastewater is aerated, microorganisms get to work feeding on nitrogen/nitrates and producing sulfate. Some wastewater treatment plants can capture methane produced during wastewater treatment and use it for heat

Sludge (solid materials) sinks to the bottom and can go to landfills or be turned into fertilizer for forests and fields. Sludge pumps are used to help get the sludge out of the tanks.

Enhance Your Systems Precision and Stability With SharpBNR

Your plant has workers, but it’s hard to predict how a day will go. Heavy rainfall, holidays, and even the pandemic can change how much wastewater flows from area homes and businesses. During the pandemic, more people worked from home and school children stayed home. People were home and using the toilet and sinks all day, which changed peak hours for higher flow rates.

There will be moments when flow rates increase and decrease. A SharpBNR control system continuously monitors for fluctuations and adjusts equipment to maintain proper operation. If there are issues that require human intervention, alerts go out.

Industrial Plants Should Consider Treating Their Wastewater Before It Goes to Sewers

If there are several industrial plants in your district, it’s time to consider having them put in water treatment equipment that pre-treats the factory’s wastewater before it goes to the sewer lines.

Package treatment plants are a great solution for industrial companies. The all-in-one plant includes screening, aeration, clarification, disinfection, and sludge removal in one tank. It’s an easily installed single system that doesn’t require a lot of space, making it ideal for established plants.

Explore the Pros and Cons of the Most Popular Removal Methods

1. Adsorption

Polymeric adsorbents are one option for removing inorganic matter from wastewater. They’re generally low-cost and do a good job of removing heavy metals and balancing pH levels. Some of the most popular polymeric adsorbents include clay, zeolites (aluminosilicates often used in dietary supplements), and nanometal oxides.

Using the same process, there is ongoing research regarding the cellular structure of algae to help remove inorganic materials. Algae feed on nitrogen and phosphorus to grow. As algae grow steadily, they can become useful in other areas like algal biofuel.

2. Bioelectrochemical

One area that’s gaining interest is bioelectrochemical systems. The energy present in organic matter becomes useful in generating power that oxidizes the pollutants. As contaminants are removed, electricity is generated. That electricity can change heavy metals like chromium from a soluble state to an insoluble one, making it easier to remove. With this process, denitrification can occur at a lower cost than some of the other methods.

3. Chemical Precipitation

One option for treating inorganic materials is to add a chemical reagent to remove inorganics. This isn’t an ideal option as some of the reagents that are commonly used include ferric salts or lime. It ends up impeding sludge treatment, making it an ineffective option in any wastewater that also has organic materials.

4. Ion Exchange

Ion exchangers replace calcium and magnesium with sodium ions. The process starts by passing wastewater through an anionic exchange resin that replaces the anions with hydrogen and hydroxide ions and creates molecules of water and then introduces sulfuric or hydrochloric acid.

The ion exchange resin layers are usually set below the flow of water. They can end up getting clogged, which isn’t ideal and needs to be addressed or you’ll end up with a malfunctioning ion exchange.

5. Membrane Filtration

Ultrafiltration uses membranes to filter out inorganic materials. Wastewater is pushed through the filters using pressure. It’s an effective system, but it does reduce water pressure. It’s ideal for filtering colloidal and dissolved materials.

6. Reverse Osmosis

Reserve osmosis requires wastewater to pass through a semipermeable membrane at high pressure, and that pressure is created using a pump. This causes contaminants within the wastewater to dissolve and separate from the water. The clean water continues flowing, but the contaminants are trapped in the membrane. This system is one you often see in homes.

Work With an Expert in Clean Water to Get Desired Results

Effective inorganic material removal starts with the right equipment. Lakeside Equipment has been designing, installing, upgrading, and maintaining water treatment solutions since 1928. We have close to a century of experience consulting with water treatment engineers, managers, and operators to ensure equipment does everything they need.

When you upgrade your wastewater system to meet new guidelines or need to improve your system’s efficiency or capacity, it’s important to work with a wastewater treatment specialist who can implement upgrades that meet your requirement without greatly increasing your budget. People in your district won’t appreciate a giant increase in their water bills, so you have to carefully plan upgrades and take advantage of grants.

Reach our experts by phone or online. Our online contact form is available 24/7 and makes it easy to get hold of Lakeside Equipment’s experts.

People often flush items that never should have been flushed. Menstrual products, diapers, baby wipes, condoms, and even accidental children’s toys can end up in the sewers and septic tanks and into your wastewater treatment plant.

Items like paper towels, baby wipes, and even the supposedly flushable wipes or cat litter can collect grease that goes down drains while washing dishes. It creates the fatbergs that create blockages in sewers.

Fatbergs can be gigantic and create major headaches for wastewater workers. The biggest fatberg in the U.S. to date was found in Detroit and measured 6 feet tall, 11 feet wide, and 100 feet long. This isn’t the largest fatberg found in sewers. One found in London was estimated to weigh 130 tons and stretched for over 820 feet.

It’s not just things that people put down the drain or flush in a toilet. If your district has a combined sewer overflow, which combines stormwater runoff systems and the sewer system, you’ll also end up with trash, branches, leaves, and other debris. All of these items can do a lot of damage by clogging channels and lines or getting caught on equipment. It’s important to screen incoming wastewater and septage to remove them.

Wipes Are a Costly Problem

A 2019 NACWA study looked at the added cost that baby wipes place on different states’ wastewater districts. In California, the cost came to more than $47 million. New York was second with added costs of almost $38 million. Illinois, Ohio, and Texas rounded out the top five with respective totals of $29 million, $25 million, and $25 million. In all, wipes add more than $440 million in operating costs to wastewater treatment plants throughout the country.

People in your district may not have any idea of the problem they’re creating while using wipes. Many are marked as flushable products, just like toilet paper, yet they do not dissolve effectively. Ryerson University looked at 101 brands of wipes, 23 of which were labeled flushable, and none of them broke down enough to prevent clogs.

Once in the sewer lines, wipes can increase operating costs by creating fatbergs that must be broken up and removed. At lift stations, they accumulate on screens and have to be removed, but if the bar screens are not narrow enough, they get into grinders and pumps and increase maintenance on those pieces of equipment. Wipes increase the maintenance that has to be performed on grinder pumps, dewatering pumps, mixers, and tanks.

An overloaded plant can also pose problems. If a clog has slowed wastewater from reaching your plant, you can have backups causing damage to homes and businesses. It may back up and enter the environment. If you have a sewer overflow, you face costly fines. When the wastewater finally releases as a clog is broken up and removed, you have a rush of wastewater coming into your plant. If you overload your equipment, you may have to release raw sewage, which can also lead to fines.

Wipes also drive up your plant’s disposal costs as items must be removed to containers, and trucked to landfills. You have the trucking fees, extra manpower, and disposal fees at the landfill.

The NACWA broke down what the added cost of wipes adds to a household’s sewer bill. In some areas, it’s about $5 a year, but it can be as much as $25 per year extra. This may not seem excessive, but added to other increasing expenses, it can strain households with a limited income.

There are two things you need to do. First, educate your district members about the importance of flushing only toilet paper and throwing out wipes, sanitary products, paper towels, condoms, etc. Make sure they are well aware of the problems that can drive up their annual wastewater bills. Second, install bar screens at your wastewater facility. Bar screens prevent a lot of frustration and damage in the long run.

What Do Bar Screens Do?

To reduce the damage and annoyance trash and wipes cause, bar screens are an important primary step in any wastewater treatment plan. If your plant doesn’t have a bar screen system or has an older, outdated one, it’s time to change that.

As wastewater comes into your plant, it travels through a channel and that channel has a series of coarse and fine bar screens that are usually spaced between a quarter-inch up to three inches apart. They trap items that shouldn’t be in a wastewater treatment plant, such as plastic or paper items that were flushed, animals that got into the sewers and died, and other debris like bone scraps that may get rinsed down the sink.

The bars trap the items, which could pose problems if they’re just left there. They’d block the flow of wastewater over time. That is prevented by having an automated rake that sits on the bottom of the channel and moves upward to capture all debris and some solids and lift it out of the wastewater.

At that point, the items that have been removed can go into bins to go to the landfill. Trash and hard organic materials aren’t going down the line where they can damage equipment or become extra work for your employees. The wastewater flows into the plant to begin the treatment process.

Choose a CO-TEC Screen for Easy Maintenance

The CO-TEC screens have fine and coarse galvanized steel or stainless steel bar screens that are cleaned by rake teeth that are positioned downstream of the bar screens to capture and remove trash and other debris. As all of the parts are above the surface of the wastewater, the maintenance on them is easier for your workers.

Lakeside Equipment is a trusted provider of wastewater bar screens and other crucial equipment that improves efficiency within your plant. New equipment does have an upfront cost, but the savings on the plant’s electricity bills provides a return on your investment in little time and keeps maintenance and operating costs down in the years to come. That makes the people in your district much happier in the long run.

Since 1928, Lakeside Equipment has specialized in water purification. Not only can we repair your existing wastewater treatment equipment, but our professionals offer sound advice on what you can do to improve your plant’s efficiency and avoid costly fees for improperly treated wastewater or sewer overflows.

Our team helps design the upgrades you request, keeping within your budgetary restraints, and installs bar screens that prevent problems caused by items that shouldn’t ever be flushed. Give us a call to find out more about the benefits of bar screens.

Sources:

https://www.mlive.com/news/2018/09/fatberg_metro_detroit.html

Nitrogen is one of the worst pollutants as it increases algae blooms in streams, rivers, and lakes. It gets into the ocean and hurts coral reefs, seagrass, and plants, developing fish and aquatic animals. Plus, algae blooms can harm wildlife and pets that swim in or drink the polluted water.

Current estimates are that around 6.2 million tons of nitrogen make it into the world’s oceans and seas. The Mississippi River is one of the largest offenders in the U.S. with around 1.57 million metric tons of nitrogen released into the Gulf of Mexico each year.

Here’s something you should be prepared for, especially if your city or town has an aging wastewater treatment plant. Prepare to have the EPA order you to lower the amount of nitrogen being released into nearby water sources. With polluted lakes, streams, rivers, and coastal waters, it’s past time to make changes to stop the damage. That’s why the EPA is cracking down.

It Could Happen to You, Too

This happened to Chicopee, Massachusetts, recently. Chicopee’s sewer department received notice that they must lower the nitrogen the city releases into the Connecticut River. At the time of the warning, the city was releasing around 1,800 pounds per day and needs to reduce that to no more than 647 pounds. The cost of the upgrades needed to meet the EPA’s requirements is topping $65 million.

That’s just one project the city is currently working on. They also are working on separating the stormwater runoff and sewer systems to prevent heavy rains from flooding the wastewater treatment plant or backing up the sewers and ending up dumping raw sewage into area rivers. That project is estimated to cost the city about $300 million when it’s completed.

So far, the city has received a grant for $4.5 million, but the costs of all upgrades are expected to be close to $400 million. While residents and businesses in the water district wouldn’t see an immediate increase in their bills, it’s unavoidable in the future, and those increases may alarm ratepayers. It’s important to plan improvements in ways that operating costs are also reduced, which lessens the impact on ratepayers.

Activated Sludge Processes Are Commonly Used to Lower Nitrogen

The most common method for nitrogen removal is an activated sludge process. Start with aeration that heightens the habitat for bacteria and protozoa that digest organic matter. Aeration continually happens, which can use up energy costs. You want an efficient aerator that transfers the most oxygen for the lowest operating cost.

The microorganisms take the nitrogen and digest it, which produces waste sludge that contains oxidized organic materials. Some of that organic matter is used to grow more microorganisms, but more of it is moved to settling tanks where the sludge settles to the bottom and is removed. That removed waste ends up in landfills or can be turned into fertilizer in forests or fields that aren’t near bodies of water.

In this process, nitrogen and ammonia are oxidized and phosphorus is removed and nitrites end up as a harmless nitrogen gas. Nitrogen gas can be used to inflate tires, replace oxygen in food packaging to keep foods fresher for longer, and in light bulb manufacturing.  

A Magna Rotor Aerator is a solid choice as it is built to withstand heavy use and harsh environments, has stainless steel blades for durability, and available fiberglass covers reduce loss of heat in cold climates. Maintenance is easily handled thanks to the convenient access areas. It’s a high-efficiency, reliable, low-operating-cost option.

Other Options for Nitrogen Removal

Activated sludge processes are the most popular with wastewater districts, but there are other options. Here are some of the other methods being used around the world.

Microalgae have cells that double their biomass every day by feeding on nitrogen. As they do it, they produce bioactive compounds, sugars, proteins, and fats. All of that can be recovered for animal feed and fertilizer. It’s an energy-efficient method, but it’s not effective overall. It’s also expensive to maintain a system that’s capable of removing enough nitrogen.

You can use a solid electron acceptor, such as oxygen and microbes in wastewater to convert nitrogen into electricity. It’s a system being studied as it could be useful for generating clean energy while also taking care of something that’s done every day. But, the hurdles so far have been in creating an efficient system that also is capable of removing the organics.

Anammox (anaerobic ammonium oxidation) is also energy efficient. Bacteria process ammonia and create a nitrogen gas. The only issue is that it processes the wastewater’s ammonia, but it’s not good at handling the organic matter. It’s great for low organic loads, but more than that and the system just doesn’t work well.

Separating Systems Is Also Essential

If your district still has combined sewer lines and stormwater drains, that’s something you should consider changing. Combined Sewer Overflows are still found in more than 750 cities around the U.S. If you have one, your wastewater district must be able to handle flooding rains or high levels of melting snow.

Whether you’re separating your system or upgrading wastewater treatment plant equipment, we have a few suggestions.

Some of the equipment you should consider include Archimedes screw pumps for moving higher volumes of water at faster rates. Grit collection improves your plant’s performance by preventing sand and gravel from building up in tanks and channels and wearing out your pumps. With the grit removed from your plant, aeration is maximized and digester tanks aren’t losing space to sand, gravel, coffee grounds, etc.

Lakeside’s Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) is an automated system that processes wastewater treatment in one basin. It mixes, aerates, settles, and removes sludge in one system without foam or scum that’s floating on the surface. Choose SBR or a continuous-feed version known as the CSBR. Benefits include having a smaller system, which is ideal when space is limited. It’s also easy to expand this system.

Older equipment should be replaced before it breaks down. While there is a cost to upgrade, you’ll make more money back by having lower energy costs, less maintenance, and optimal processing of wastewater. Look for equipment with stainless steel components that won’t rust, sealed bearings that require less maintenance, and pumps and mixers that aerate and push wastewater around effectively.

When your residents are saving money in the long run, the cost of upgrading is less alarming. Plus, you don’t want to miss out on current government grants designed to help cities make important upgrades to their sewers and water treatment plants.

Talk to Lakeside Equipment before you face steep fines. Our engineers can go over your current system with you and discuss the most important, cost-effective upgrades to get your plant on the path to meet the changing requirements for things like nitrogen levels, PFAs, and other Clean Water Act limits. You’ll have the insight you need on how to have cleaner water, lower energy bills, and less downtime due to failures.

 Sources:

https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2000/0135/report.pdf

During Hurricane Ian, upwards of 20 inches of rain fell in southwestern Florida. Bradenton is one of many water treatment plants that had no choice but to release millions of gallons of wastewater into a nearby river. A spill of 7.2 million gallons of sewer water leaked into the Indian River Lagoon. Miami saw thousands of gallons of sewage overflow into storm drains. These are just two of a long list of issues, and it’s not a problem Florida officials are seeing for the first time.

During two hurricanes in 2016, 250 million gallons of raw sewage spilled into the environment. Millions of gallons leaked during Hurricane Irma in 2017. One area that saw no issues was the Florida Keys, where $1 billion in upgrades led to sealed pipes and an advanced wastewater treatment system that removes nitrogen and releases the treated water over 3,000 feet below sea level.

Florida isn’t the only state experiencing raw sewage spills during flooding rains. Back in January, 8.5 million gallons of sewage spilled into a Los Angeles waterway. Wisconsin Rapids saw about 165,000 gallons overflow into the Wisconsin River.

These sewage spills are public health hazards. The raw sewage is rife with pathogens like E. coli, campylobacter, and salmonella. Nitrogen in the waste can lead to algae blooms in the rivers, lakes, and oceans.  When there are flooding rains, overflow situations are possible. How can you prevent them?

What Is Your Current Set-Up?

Combined sewer overflow is a system where stormwater runoff, sewage, and industrial wastewater all flow in one pipe to one wastewater treatment plant. If stormwater runoff increases in heavy rainfall or snowmelt, the excess water can become a problem for the treatment plant. Suddenly, there’s more water coming in than the equipment can handle and the plant has to release untreated wastewater to the lake or river.

Many cities and districts have moved away from this system, but approximately 700 of these systems still exist according to the EPA. They’re all bound to the 1994 CSO Control Policy and the Clean Water Act. If you’re in a district where this is the design, it’s time to consider a change.

Sanitary sewer systems are more common. Sewer and industrial wastewater travel to the wastewater treatment plant while storm runoff travels to storm drains and out to bodies of water from there. Storm runoff isn’t treated, so it’s important that area residents don’t pour chemicals down storm drains. 

Introducing the Integrated Planning Elements

A few years ago, Congress enacted the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act. The idea was to offer ways for districts to voluntarily begin to make changes in stormwater and wastewater planning in order to meet standards set forth in the Clean Water Act. There are six elements to the framework of the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act.

1. Brainstorm and plan out the requirements and drivers.
2. Map out the existing infrastructure in a municipality’s stormwater and wastewater systems.
3. Connect with project stakeholders.
4. Brainstorm, evaluate, and select alternative plans.
5. Analyze the performance.
6. Formally adopt the necessary changes.

Just over two dozen districts started to integrate measures or developed and completed their changes. As more money is being earmarked for infrastructure improvements, it’s time to look at the steps your wastewater and stormwater district can take to lower the chances of a sewage spill during flooding.

Look at Your Capacity and Add Flood-Proofing Measures

Stop and look at the current capacity of your wastewater treatment facility. If heavy rainfall is causing system overflows, it’s time to look at upgrades, repairs, and adding to the existing capacity. Not only can that increased capacity help in times of heavy rain, but it also helps with population growth in the years to come.

In addition, if your facility is in a low-lying area, it’s time to look at flood-proofing measures that help protect tanks, ponds, and other equipment. Flood barriers are ideal for keeping flood water away, and servers and network hubs need to be on higher ground. Submersible pumps will help protect your equipment. Use the EPA’s flood planning guide to determine if you could be impacted by a 100-year flood and get helpful tips on where you should focus your upgrades and changes.

Upgrade Your Older Equipment 

If you have older wastewater treatment equipment, it’s time to address the benefits of upgrading to newer, more efficient waterproof or submersible pumps and motors. Ideally, look for equipment that has adjustable motors that will work harder when flow rates increase and slow down when it decreases.

An addition of a bar screen may be enough to help with combined sewer overflows. If back-ups occur regularly as trash, sticks, branches, leaves, and other materials build up on screens, it’s time to look at better screening. With trash and other debris cleared and moved to a landfill, it allows water to flow correctly, which prevents overflows and costly fines.

If you don’t already have Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) technology, you need it. Computers can monitor how well the system is working and identify problems before they start. With flowmeters, facility personnel can spot overflows, chemical imbalances, and leaks and take immediate action. 

Plus, SCADA can help you automate your facility. You’ll still need operators, but you’ll have 24/7 monitoring to avoid overflows. Being able to analyze real-time data and get timely alerts is important when it comes to flood management and avoidance of fines and EPA violations.

Careful City Design Is Equally Important

A stormwater system and wastewater treatment plan should make upgrades to help prevent overflow situations, but it also helps if city planners look at environmentally-friendly changes that help with rainwater. 

Permeable surfaces are key to this process. Instead of paved roads, concrete sidewalks, and other impermeable structures that allow water to collect and flow like a river, add green areas where the water can soak in. Rain gardens, porous paving materials, and green roofs also help. 

Bioswales are also gaining popularity. These sunken areas along roads are filled with greenery and piping that helps complete the primary filtering before distributing the water that’s in excess of what the plants use.

Instead of building right on river banks, setting buildings farther away to allow for the rise of water in a floodplain is also important. 

Get Expert Advice from Lakeside Equipment

Work with an expert in water treatment designs, repairs, and installations. It’s important that your system be carefully designed to meet your growing community’s needs and changing weather patterns. Every measure you take to prepare your facility for flooding or heavy rain is important.

Lakeside Equipment specializes in water treatment and has been in business for nearly a century. Talk to us about your current treatment plant’s equipment and where you feel it’s falling short. We’ll help you design a cost-effective system that’s prepared for floods and population growth.

As years go by, the EPA changes and updates public water treatment requirements. It’s a district’s responsibility to keep up with those changes. As policies change, it doesn’t mean that water treatment plants are able to keep up. Lakeside Equipment is ready to help you take a closer look at what these changes mean for your water treatment district.

Colorado is one state where recent changes by the EPA are causing headaches. The EPA is adding new guidelines regarding the safe limits for PFAs (aka Forever Chemicals) in drinking water. The new policies call for a drop from 70 parts per trillion to no more than 1 part per trillion for PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid). These limits are too low for some labs to test for, and many water treatment plants lack the equipment needed to get the levels to those new guidelines.

It’s a problem as around 50% of Colorado’s water districts do not test for PFOA or PFOS. Of those that do, 76 have higher levels than is recommended. In one city, the PFOS level was at 3.5 parts per trillion. The cost for that city to upgrade filtration is around $10 million, and Colorado is slated to get about $321 million of the $1 billion Federal Infrastructure Bill, so only 30 or so water treatment plants will get funding to help offset the upgrades.

Has your district started looking at government grants and funding to make important upgrades to your water treatment plant? By now, it’s likely that you have. It’s time to look at all of the latest changes and what it means for your district.

The Dangers of PFOA and PFOS

The forever chemicals PFOA and PFOS are newer concerns. Over time, they affect the cardiovascular system and a person’s immune function. They also increase the risk of certain cancers, and it’s believed they impact fetal development. Some studies have found they impact thyroid function, kidney health, and reproduction.

As a result of these studies, the EPA came up with a lifetime health advisory, warning people to minimize their lifetime exposure to these forever chemicals in the water they drink, the foods they eat, and consumer products. The new drinking water advisories listed by the EPA are:

• PFOA – 0.004 parts per trillion
• PFOS – 0.02 parts per trillion
• PFBS – 2,000 parts per trillion
• GenX Chemicals – 10 parts per trillion

These forever chemicals build up in your blood. They’re found in the water, in the air, and in the soil. They don’t go away, and that’s why the EPA issued a lifetime health advisory.

Lead Pipes Are Still a Concern and Steps Are Being Taken to Get Rid of Them

Even if a water district has clean water, the pipes that carry water into homes, schools, and businesses may contain lead solder or lead pipes. The Biden-Harris Administration’s Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan addresses lead contamination. An investment of $15 billion through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is earmarked to remove lead pipes across the nation.

As of 2021, around 22 million homes were getting drinking water through lead pipes. Some states have a higher risk than others. These states had the highest number of lead pipes.

• Illinois
• Michigan
• Missouri
• New Jersey
• Ohio
• Wisconsin

Every state still has lead pipes in service and that’s something that has to be addressed. The dangers of lead have been proven. Exposure to lead can cause anemia, brain damage, kidney damage, and weakness.

What Upgrades Should You Be Making?

When it comes to your water treatment district, what upgrades do you need to make? For many districts, better filtration is essential. In a home, dual-stage filters with activated carbon and reverse osmosis are effective. It’s found that reverse osmosis is the most effective method for removing PFAS. Nanofiltration is also helpful.

Sweeney Water Plant in Wilmington, North Carolina, installed granulated activated carbon filters and has been testing them since 2019. As of 2022, they now have water that’s free of PFAS. To get to that point, they spent more than $100 million. They plan to recover the money from the companies that contaminated the city’s waterways through federal lawsuits.

In Peabody, Massachusetts, a $36 million Clean & Sustainable Water Infrastructure Plan upgraded the city’s water treatment plant with new technology, an updated lab, and new filtration to remove forever chemicals from the water. They also made sure the city’s water treatment plant is ready to manage 3 million gallons per day, though they’re only currently managing around 1 million gallons daily. They made sure the plant is ready for future growth.

Lead pipes and forever chemicals are concerns, but it’s also important to look at your facility’s equipment. How old are your pumps, filtration systems, lab equipment, etc.? If you built your facility to handle a population of 100,000 and you’re now at 99,000, you may soon reach capacity. What happens then?

What filtration are you using? Many plants are finding the best success with granulated activated carbon. GAC filters are doing a good job removing PFAS, so you want to look into those. While you’re making those upgrades, make sure your lab is able to test for forever chemicals. The easier it is to check your levels quickly and accurately, the better it is for your community.

While you’re making changes to your filters, pumps, and upgrading equipment, consider future growth. What if there’s a boom in growth due to a new apartment complex or building housing office space? If you can plan your changes around population increases, it’s beneficial.

Are you in an area prone to storms? If your water treatment plant is in any way connected to wastewater treatment or storm runoff, you have to factor in climate change, too. Storms may worsen, so plan around those changes. You don’t want to end up with a water system that’s contaminated in a flood, extremely heavy rains, or sudden snow melt.

Energy-Efficient Upgrades Save Money

No upgrade should be considered without also considering ways to save money. If you could install solar panels or wind turbines to help power your water treatment plant, you save your district members money. Those savings pay for the upgrades over time. It’s worth taking a closer look at new equipment that saves money by using less power, pairs with alternative energy sources, or is low-maintenance.

Work With An Expert to Plan the Best Changes for Your Water Treatment Plant

These are some of the changes plants around the nation are making. What steps should you take? The best way to plan for growth and changing water treatment requirements is by working with an expert in water treatment. Lakeside Equipment has been in the industry for close to 100 years.

Our company’s been in water treatment since 1928 and strives to help every community have clean, safe drinking water and waterways. Talk to our water treatment experts to learn more about the best upgrades for your district’s drinking water. Lakeside Equipment works with your budget and helps you determine the responsible way to grow your water treatment plant, better clean the water, and keep cost increases down for your community members.

Hurricane Ian destroyed so many beaches, businesses, and homes across Florida. As the storm was slated to hit the Tampa Bay area and then ended up hitting farther south, people weren’t always prepared and didn’t always have the time to evacuate. That’s just one area of concern with changing weather patterns.

The storm surge and heavy rains lead to power outages and raw sewage flooded out of sewers and wastewater treatment plants, releasing untreated sewage into rivers and streets. Bradenton’s wastewater treatment plant reported having to release millions of gallons of wastewater into the Manatee River. Orlando released tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater before it was fully treated. In Miami, thousands of gallons bubbled up from the sewers.

Hurricane Ian’s rainfall almost reached two feet by the time it left the western coastline. No one was prepared for that amount of rainfall, followed by a substantial storm surge. It has raised awareness that the infrastructure in Florida is not prepared for these massive storms. How prepared is your wastewater treatment plant?

Take a Close Look at Your Infrastructure

One of the problems affecting Florida’s sewers and wastewater treatment facilities is outdated piping. Some of the pipes are made from cast iron and are corroding. Until the 1970s, some districts used piping known as Orangeburg, which was a compressed wood fiber with a water-resistant adhesive, and coal tar.

Orangeburg was affordable, but it was only intended to last for 50 years. The problem is, some of the piping failed within 10 years. In some areas of Florida, Orangeburg piping is still being used. As cities bring homeowners on septic systems to sewer systems, the changeovers are made, but it takes time and money.

Florida isn’t the only place in the nation that needs to stop and take a closer look at its infrastructure. Northern Virginia is working on a project to install a two-mile sewer tunnel that goes under the Potomac River to try to stop the release of untreated wastewater going into the river. Alexandria, Virginia, only has one main sewer pipe for stormwater and sewage, and it causes serious issues. Cities like Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and Seattle, Washington, are working on similar upgrades.

Get a better picture of just how many systems are facing similar problems. Here are some of the most important facts from the 2021 Infrastructure Report Card.

• Over 16,000 wastewater treatment plants in the U.S. are operating at 81% of their systems’ capacities.
• Around 15% of them have exceeded capacity.
• Wastewater treatment plans typically have a lifespan of 40 to 50 years.
• The nation’s underground piping bringing wastewater to treatment plants or clean drinking water to homes and businesses is an average of 45 years old and has a lifespan of 50 to 100 years.
• Older piping is a problem as cracks and fractures allow stormwater and groundwater to seep into the sewer pipes, increasing the flow entering a facility, which puts more demand on the system’s equipment.
• One out of five Americans rely on a septic tank, and the liquids and solids from those tanks are hauled to an area wastewater treatment plant, so every American relies on their area’s wastewater treatment plant.

The importance of a wastewater treatment system extends to every corner of the nation. Yet if you look at the burden of the cost of the necessary upgrades between 1977, when the government’s capital investment was 63%, and today, it’s concerning. In 2017, the federal government’s capital investment was down to 9%. President Biden signed an infrastructure bill that’s an important first step in making improvements, but there’s a lot of work to do.

With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, $15 billion is earmarked for the replacement of lead water pipes. States are also given funding for water projects, so it’s important to look into what’s available in your state’s revolving loan fund. Total wastewater grants and funding include:

• $75 million for information sharing regarding water infrastructure and water quality
• $100 million for wastewater efficiency grants
• $125 million for system resilience
• $200 for new sewer system connections to help move some areas from septic systems to area sewers
• $250 million for new installations, repairs, or replacements of septic systems
• $1.4 billion for measures to control and treat sewer and stormwater-related overflows

What should you be doing? It’s time to take a closer look at your equipment. Just how quickly can it work? Does it require someone to be onsite for changes or is it automated? Is your equipment pretty trouble-free or does it require frequent maintenance?

Another question to ask is where stormwater runoff goes. In older districts, there is a chance that stormwater runoff is channeled to wastewater treatment plants. This isn’t as common, but it still does happen around the U.S. If there are flooding rains and the stormwater rushes to a wastewater treatment plant, it can pose serious issues with untreated wastewater being released. Separating those systems should be a consideration.

In your district, what piping is being used? What is the capacity of the equipment in your treatment plant? Are your stormwater run-off and wastewater treatment systems connected? If there is a massive flood or unheard-of levels of storm surge, are you prepared? If not, it’s time to consider what you can do to be prepared.

The Florida Keys Shows the Importance of Change

The Florida Keys spent around $1 billion upgrading their wastewater and stormwater systems. They installed sealed pipes to prevent stormwater from getting into the sewers. Their wastewater equipment was upgraded with a treatment system for nitrogen removal to help prevent algal blooms and the wastewater treatment plant’s cleaned water was released 3,000 feet below ground instead of at the surface.

That system seemed to do well. After the flooding from 2017’s Hurricane Irma, no sewage spills occurred. In the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Pollution Notice Report, no mention of the Keys was made after Hurricane Ian.

If your system hasn’t been upgraded lately, it’s a good time to consider making improvements. Not only can you install upgrades that save on energy consumption, but you can use grants to add solar panels or wind turbines to reduce your demand on the power grid. Burning the methane produced in your plant for heat is another great upgrade.

From Raptor Complete Plant systems to grit collectors and trash rakes to open and enclosed screw pumps, Lakeside Equipment can help you upgrade older equipment to handle higher capacities. We offer SharpBNR process control systems to ensure your facility meets its goals. Many times, the money you save on energy bills or by avoiding EPA fines pays for the system in little time.

Lakeside Equipment provides cost-effective wastewater, hydroelectricity, and water treatment equipment for your municipal and industrial needs. Our experts have been helping deliver cleaner water since 1928. Reach out to our team to discuss how we can help you save money and ensure you’re meeting your community’s water treatment goals.

Does your wastewater treatment plant have trash rakes installed to clean racks and screens from the trash that collects as wastewater comes in from sewers? Why is this important? It keeps the lines from clogging with unnecessary items and dead animals that have made their way into sewers. It also helps prevent excess strain on pumps, pipes, and other wastewater treatment equipment.

Trash rakes work with your existing trash racks and screens. If you don’t have them installed, you should. If you do and they’re not working effectively, it’s important to look at making upgrades to ensure your sewer system or stormwater drains don’t back up because the water can’t get through.

People Flush Items That Were Never Meant to be Flushed, or They Put Them Down Sinks

People don’t always realize that the items they’re flushing are incredibly damaging. Those items need to be screened before they cause equipment failures that can take time and money to repair. Sometimes, the items that get flushed are believed to be flushable. Flushable wipes are one of the most common. While the packaging says they’re flushable, they do not break down easily.

That’s just a start. Pouring grease down a drain creates fatbergs that clog lines and may break off into chunks and make their way into wastewater treatment plants to further clog lines. In New York City, the city reported that of the 2,382 sewer backups in 2018, three out of four of them were caused by grease buildup. At that point, one sewer line repair cost as much as $15,000.

Plastic tampon applicators, wrappers, condoms, pads, diapers, and cat litter are other problematic items. There are surprising items that you wouldn’t expect, too. The American Chemical Society reported that 21% of contact wearers flush their disposable contacts rather than throwing them into the trash as they should. It’s estimated that 3 million contacts end up in wastewater treatment plants.

Some wastewater treatment plants also receive stormwater when it rains. In facilities where stormwater and sewer water both come into the plant, a trash rack can capture leaves, branches, rocks, and trash like bottles, cans, and plastic bags that travel into storm drains and to wastewater treatment plants or rivers, lakes, and oceans.

To prevent damage from these items, they get caught up on trash racks and screens. Rakes are used to rake or scrape debris from the racks or screens, move them to dumpsters, and move them to landfills or incinerators.

Trash rakes also help clean the screens and trash racks to ensure water continues to flow into the plant. If too much trash builds up, the water flow diminishes and that could lead to back-ups in the sewer lines.

Types of Trash Rakes

What type of trash rake is best for your wastewater treatment plant? It comes down to your current equipment and plant size. Generally, there are two raking systems: cable operated and hydraulic

1. Cable Operated

Catronic systems are heavy-duty systems using a rake head and cable winch that can clean trash racks with depths of 200 feet and lift up to 20 tons of materials. They’re energy-efficient and can be retrofitted to existing structures. They’re also easy to maintain as the components are above the water during standby.

Monorail systems are best for facilities that have several bar racks. The Catronic Monorail systems are suspended above trash racks on a monorail. The trash rake moves along the monorail and drops down using the cable system. It’s then pulled back up to move the trash into an awaiting dumpster.

The Catronic Monorail system can be retrofitted to work with existing trash racks. It’s energy-efficient and works effectively. Maintenance is performed once the system is parked away from the rack. As the rake travels along the monorail to areas away from the operating deck, trash isn’t accidentally dropped into inconvenient areas.

Your options are:

• Catronic Series – Add optional jib cranes or hydraulic grab cranes for heavy debris that’s floating on the surface.
• Monorail Series – Combines the rake head and cable trolley system.

2. Hydraulic

Hydraulic systems telescope to the trash rack to clean it. As there is no need for a monorail or guide, it can clean at better angles (up to 90 degrees), which makes it a favorite choice for wastewater treatment plants. You can get stationary, swiveling, or traversing rakes. You can get single gripping jaws, triple jaws, or orange peel grapples that can go hundreds of feet down.

Some of the advantages of hydronic trash rakes include that operators can adjust the pressure on the trash screen for optimal cleaning. All mechanical components are above the water for easy maintenance, plus there are no chains, guides, or sprockets to wear out. You can get Hydronic trash rakes in galvanized steel or stainless steel.

Your options are:

• Hydronic H Series – Horizontal design that pivots into a bar rack and travels sideways and is most commonly used in river water intakes at water treatment plants to protect aquatic life
• Hydronic K Series – Stationary, Swiveling, or Traversing rakes that can clean at depths of up to 100 feet.
• Hydronic T Series – Telescoping rakes that can either be stationary or traversing.
• Hydronic Multifunctional – A traversing rake with manual, semi-automatic, or fully automatic articulating or combination articulating and telescoping rake to clean at depths of up to 150 feet.

The goal of trash and screen rakes is to capture and remove debris before it clogs lines or damages equipment. With so many consumers and businesses flushing items that shouldn’t go down the toilet, trash and screen rakes are a necessary investment. How do you know what you need?

When you’re considering your options, look for automated trash rakes. In Portland, Oregon, older trash rakes weren’t doing their job with the flood management system and kept shutting down. Employees had to go out on a barge to clear the grates.

The city upgraded to trash rakes that could lift a minimum of 2,000 pounds instead of the 1,250 pounds the current system was managing. They also needed a trash rake that fit the required dimensions. They ended up choosing five Lakeside Muhr Model T-260 Hydronic T trash rakes. Cleaning time was greatly reduced and efficiency at the plant greatly improved.

Work With a Professional in Water Treatment

The easiest way to design a trash rake system that does what you need is by working with a professional. Lakeside Equipment has a complete line of trash and screen rakes. We’ve been engineering, developing, and providing the water treatment systems municipalities and industries need since 1928. We have a lot of experience in designing cost-effective, efficient systems.

Talk to us to learn more about your options that will complement your current equipment and protect the piping, pumps, and other wastewater treatment from costly damage. Contact your local sales representative today.

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) was enacted in 1948, but it didn’t add much in the way of federal guidelines. Essentially, states, towns, and cities were offered some federal funding to address water pollution, but water pollution was a state’s problem and up to communities to solve on their own.

The FWPCA was updated in the 1950s and 1960s, now there was some control on a federal level, but only if the waterway passed through more than one state. It still required states to set their own standards. The changes were considered problematic as it was hard to determine exactly who was violating quality standards given the length of some waterways. Even if it was determined who was polluting a waterway, clean-up measures took longer than expected and control measures could be planned but not necessarily implemented.

Then, Ohio’s Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969. There were so many chemicals and other pollutants in the water that it became obvious something needed to change. President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act in 1970 and established the Environmental Protection Agency, which started a movement to clean up America’s waterways.

All of this brings us to 1972 when the federal government decided that government involvement was long overdue. That’s when the U.S. Clean Water Act was enacted, and it turns 50 this year.

The Clean Water Act Is Signed Into Law

The Clean Water Act of 1972 came up with new goals, and the biggest was that all industrial and municipal wastewater had to be treated before it was discharged. The federal government offered monetary assistance for the construction of municipal wastewater treatment plants, set strict enforcement policies on the federal level, and left day-to-day implementation of the new law to the states. This time, however, the EPA had a say in what happened, which put a lot more control in the government’s hands.

In October of 1972, one of the first changes hit when Congress enacted the Ocean Dumping Act. At that point, close to six dozen companies who had applied to dump their chemicals in the oceans were told no. That helped stop some of the pollutants from going into the ocean.

As the Clean Water Act also required industrial wastewater to be treated, industries had a deadline of July 1, 1977, in order to establish policies and develop industrial wastewater treatment systems. Municipal wastewater systems also had that deadline to establish secondary treatment systems, but they could apply for extensions and hope they’d be approved. Even with extensions, all wastewater districts had to meet the EPA’s “best practicable control technology” standards by July 1, 1988.

The best practicable control technology improvements were next. Industries were also given until March 31, 1989, to meet the “best available technology” for water treatment of toxic substances. Industrial settings that failed to meet this rule faced court-ordered actions.

Once the 1988 deadline hit, 86% of the nation’s municipal wastewater treatment plants had met the standards. The 14% that didn’t meet the deadline faced court-ordered schedules. Sadly, there are still towns and cities that struggle to meet the standards due to crumbling infrastructure.

Until 1988, sewage sludge and industrial waste were still being dumped in the oceans. It was banned completely with the Sewage-Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988. In 1992, New York City dumped its last load of sewage in the ocean finalizing the city’s agreement with the Ocean Dumping Ban Act.

The Safe Drinking Water Act Followed

At the end of 1974, another act was passed by the government. The Safe Drinking Water Act was signed on December 16th. It gave the EPA authority to regulate the quality of drinking water in public water systems.

Even as measures were taken to stop polluting the nation’s waterways, cancer-causing chemicals were discovered in New Orleans and Pittsburgh’s drinking water. Many other towns and cities were finding their public water smelled or tasted odd. To end this, drinking water standards were to be set by the end of 1977. In 1977, the act was upgraded and the changes were signed into law by President Jimmy Carter.

Public water systems had to make sure their water met these new standards, though extensions, such as budgetary constraints, would be granted in certain situations. Plus, districts that didn’t meet the EPA’s standards had to notify all customers immediately of the pollutants in the community’s drinking water.

Under President Reagan’s presidency, the Safe Water Drinking Act was updated again in 1986. More than 100 contaminants were added to the list of current contaminants. Industrial and municipal wastewater treatment plants had until 1991 to upgrade their wastewater treatment plants or systems to start cleaning wastewater of the new contaminants. Lead materials were also banned in water systems. Until then, lead solder could be used on water supply pipes.

When 400,000 people in Wisconsin were sickened by cryptosporidium, it led to 100 deaths. The EPA immediately launched regulations and testing for cryptosporidium with the Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule.

The next amendment to the Safe Drinking Water Act took place in 1996 under President Clinton. He signed the law to grant funding to municipal water treatment plants in need of upgrades to their system and to make sure they provide information to customers about any microbes or chemicals in their public drinking water supply.

In 1997, Canada and the U.S. teamed up to clean up the Great Lakes. The goal was to clean the lakes by 2006, as these lakes were providing more than 15 million people with water at the time the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was signed.

Hudson River was the next waterway to get cleanup. PCB contamination in the Hudson River was cleaned in 2002 by removing 2.65 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment from a 40-mile stretch of the river.

The EPA Announced Government Contracts, Loans, and Grants Bans

To ensure industries and wastewater districts followed the new laws, the EPA announced a ban on any government contracts, loans, or grants in 1975. If a company was in violation of the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act, it would not be awarded a government grant, loan, or contract. Essentially, anyone caught polluting would lose out on essential government funding options and future contracts.

Use of PCBs and Other Chemicals Are Banned

One area of concern in 1979 became the use of synthetic chemicals known as PCBs. They were commonly used in paints, cement, and many commercial and household products. PCBs were found in water, soil, and in the air. As they were believed to cause certain cancers, their use needed to be phased out.

In 1983, the EPA ordered an immediate stop to EDB’s use as a pesticide after it was found in the groundwater. As it is a carcinogen and mutagen, it was immediately banned.

President Reagan signed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act in 1986. If toxic chemicals were going to be released into the air, soil, or water, communities had to be informed. 

What’s the Future of the Clean Water Act?

Even with the Clean Water Act, there are still many issues. In 1983, sewage treatment plants, farms, and urban runoff brought the pollution levels in the Chesapeake Bay to unheard-of levels. Federal, state, and local teams worked together to begin the cleanup that’s still ongoing. 

President Obama renewed efforts to clean and protect the Chesapeake Bay. To do so, he named the bay a national treasure with an executive order in 2009. In 2011, the EPA established the “Pollution Diet” limiting the maximum daily load for pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus from states with waterways that feed into the Chesapeake Bay. Pollution controls must be in place by 2025.

As research advances, more pollutants are found and pollution from the past starts leaching out of the soil or groundwater and raising issues today. That’s why the 50-year-old Clean Water Act continues to be updated and altered.

Does your plant need upgrades to meet the most recent EPA requirements? Are you struggling with efficiency and coming too close to maximum flow rates? It’s time to address the upgrades to your wastewater treatment plant or water treatment facility. Lakeside Equipment is an expert in treatment solutions and has been since the 1920s. Trust in our expertise to bring your facility up-to-date with technology and energy-efficient equipment.