Stage Crews of Society: Wastewater Treatment Facilities
This past week we had the (smelly) pleasure of visiting one of the backbones to our society, our wastewater treatment plant in Plattsburgh! Wastewater treatment plants are vital for the treatment of water and removal of solids from water that goes down our drains before re-entering the water system. Through a process of screening and settlement, primary, secondary, and tertiary treatments and the introduction of microorganisms to breakdown organic materials wastewater treatment plants assure water is treated and tested to safely return to rivers and oceans. These treatment services are more important than ever to protect and keep clean our resources, waters, beaches and recreational spaces as populations and water usage increases. From our visit, I was able to understand how Plattsburgh Wastewater Treatment Facility works with their team of professionals to treat 16 million+ gallons of wastewater a day and ensure operational challenges are met and exceeded.
Four challenges often face wastewater treatment facilities like that of Plattsburgh’s who handles domestic and industrial waste water. Mr. Powell the chief energy operator, and Rich Montroy the facility manager, both gave us some insight on what their facility does to meet standards. Energy Consumption is a problem that faces the operations of waste water treatment facilities. Nationally, waste water treatment plants consume 2-3% of developed nations electrical power, biological treatment being the most energy demanding part of the process. Plattsburgh’s facilities utilize screen treatments in primary treatment as well as technologies in the aeration process to help offset some of that energy demand as well as protect their machines from more frequent maintenance.
Secondly, staffing is often an issue for wastewater treatment plants. While some advancements are being made in the automation of certain operations which require workers, on sight oversight is a must for the treatment plants. Mr. Powell has been working in the industry since 1971 and his expertise of operations shows when he talks about the plant and it’s operations. While Mr. Powell has held his position for quite some time new faces such as recent SUNY Plattsburgh alumni from the Environmental Science Department are now working at the plant as environmental officers or in many other viable positions within the field. This field is full and inviting of opportunity for career opportunities. Visiting the plant you could tell how proud and passionate the workers of their work and the crucial services they provide for the community.
Due to the nature of the work, some byproduct is produced known as sludge. This sludge production is generated through chemical and biological treatment and the disposal of this poses major environmental risks. Mr. Montroy explained to us touring the facility that their treatment plant takes measures to meet NYS standards for the handling and disposal of sludge and have worked to come up with alternative viable solutions to sludge waste such as utilizing the organic matter from it for agriculture. When it’s not recycled its properly stored until it can be moved to its final resting place in a landfill.
On top of sludge production, the vital service of wastewater treatment for society poses great risks environmentally if mismanaged. Wastewater treatment plants take up a substantial amount of land and settling tanks and aeration basins run risks of leaks and contamination. In addition to land usage and leak risks, there are times across the country when wastewater treatment facilities are pushed past their intake capabilities due to lake of funding for upgrades and rapidly expanding urban centers. Because water influx doesn’t stop and they can’t allow sewages to back up into the streets, treatment plants are forced to push through their system and into the lake partially treated water. This release of untreated water leads to issues of deposits in the lake throwing off water chemical levels and causing algae blooms and more. Algae blooms can close beaches and wreak havoc on ecosystems like Lake Champlain for example. However, despite these challenges it was encouraging to see the extra measures Mr. Powell, Mr. Montroy and their team take to ensure they meet compliance and play their hand in protecting the environment in such a serious job. The facility was able to pride themselves on how few times they had failed to meet compliance for any reason over the past decade.
Awareness is the first personal step that we need to take as a society to really look beyond where we put our waste and rather where it ends up. We need to focus on improvements we can make as municipalities as well as citizens to ensure that those at the wastewater treatment plants can do their jobs safely and efficiently. This movement requires responsible citizens handling and disposing of their waste properly, teams like Mr. Powell’s to use their expertise to handle these materials and protect our waters, and lastly this requires the work of governments, cities and states to ensure that their wastewater treatment plants have the equipment, manpower and technology needed to meet the demands of the growing communities they serve.
To learn more about these vital services, I have attached a video link which describes how wastewater treatment facilities operate as well as a video highlighting the outdated and dangerous wastewater treatment operations and the courageous workers who complete the work no one else will in the sewers of Mumbai; a country which lacks the infrastructure and technology to meet the demands of it’s populations waste safely.
Thanks for reading!