The arrival of spring can pose more challenges to a wastewater treatment plant. Warmer temperatures encourage bacterial activity. Heavy spring rains increase sewer discharges, especially in districts with connected sewer systems and storm drains.

Combined sewer overflows are found in approximately 700 municipalities. While the U.S. is making strides in separating them, they’re still out there. When there are heavy rains, stormwater and sewer water combine and raise the risk of flooding if a plant isn’t equipped for the rapid increase in flow rates. These combined systems are found in the following states.

California
Connecticut
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Missouri
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New York
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

Wastewater treatment uses a lot of energy, and the importance of cleaning the water of harmful contaminants and items like phosphates that encourage the growth of harmful algae is crucial. Plants have to balance getting the job done as efficiently and quickly as possible while also doing it in an eco-friendly way. Eco-friendly biological wastewater treatment is an effective, sustainable option.

The Basics of Conventional Wastewater Treatment

A conventional wastewater treatment process involves removing trash like plastic wrappers, bone fragments from animals that get into the sewer system, and solids like solidified fats, food particles, and human waste. Those need to be separated first. Once as many solids are removed as possible, chemical treatment is the go-to option.

Chemicals like chlorine (bleach) were used to kill germs. Sometimes, UV light was introduced as the chemicals had to dissipate before the wastewater was tested to ensure safe levels of things like E.coli, mercury, phosphates, etc. before the treated water goes to a lake, stream, or water treatment facility for processing into drinking water.

When chemicals are used, they need to be removed to safe levels. You can’t release highly chlorinated water into a lake as that chemical can kill fish and other aquatic life.

If water still has high phosphate levels, it acts as a rapid-grow fertilizer for algae that takes oxygen from other plants and animals, and some algae are dangerous to animals. Dogs that swim in water with blue-green algae blooms die from exposure to anatoxins found within them.

To ensure water is clean, continual testing is important. Still, the chemicals, treatments, and repeated processes use a lot of energy as water is aerated, pumped from one area to another, and filtered to remove solids.

The Benefits Gained by Embracing Biological Treatment

Biological wastewater treatment is a more popular option as it’s an eco-friendly, sustainable wastewater treatment process. It starts the same. A trash rake is used to remove plastic wrappers, bags, and other trash that can damage equipment like pumps and create clogs. Screens and trash rakes complete this process.

Once trash is removed, the wastewater goes into tanks where there are three stages of water treatment: primary, secondary, and tertiary. It involves these steps.

Activated Sludge: Aerobic microbes help break down organic materials. Pumps help circulate the water to create the oxygen the microbes need to do their work.
Anaerobic Digestion: Microbes no longer need oxygen and start producing methane and carbon dioxide as they complete their work.
Anoxic Growth: Microbes eventually turn to other items such as sulfates to grow.

Through these stages, there are different types of microorganisms used to break down organic materials in the wastewater. The goal is to ensure their health and ability to multiply. This keeps the system running smoothly, even if extra wastewater comes in during a spring flood.

In addition to the microbes, fixed-bed or moving-bed bioreactors contain porous biofilm that houses the microbes and can help with filtration when they’re used. A biological trickling filter is another option. Wastewater passes through the filter that’s often made of sand, ceramic, or even coconut fibers.

All of these components offer the major benefit of requiring less energy. They don’t use a lot of electricity, so you lower the plant’s carbon footprint and energy bills at the same time. When you have microbes producing biogas like methane, some systems capture that gas and convert it to useful fuel for the heating and cooling within the facility.

Sludge that’s removed can be composted or even dried and turned into fertilizer that can be used to help nourish plants and trees in forests and fields.

Lakeside Equipment’s biological treatment equipment includes the following options:

CLR Process – A closed loop reactor (CLR) is a tank that’s in a loop that allows for the constant circulation of wastewater. It’s effective in cold weather and is easily configured to meet different needs.
Magna Rotor Aerators – An effective way to mix solids and keep them from settling. The stainless steel blades help large numbers of microorganisms thrive, even if there’s a shock load, thanks to the ability to aerate and provide oxygen.
Sequencing Batch Reactors – This is a cost-effective option for biological treatments. It’s a single basin that uses timers to fill, mix, aerate, settle, decant, and remove sludge without creating a lot of foam. There are sequencing or continuous sequencing options.
Submersible Mixers and Recirculation Pumps – Mixers help stir up and aerate the water while recirculation pumps move the wastewater from one tank to another. Both are designed to last and work efficiently without a lot of energy consumption.

You can also get a Package Treatment Plant that reduces your footprint and requires less manpower. It includes a Closed Loop Reactor in the outer loop and a Spiro Clarifier in the center. It’s a great choice when you don’t have a lot of space and need a system that does the job well.

Where Is the Future of Sustainable Wastewater Treatment Heading?

There’s a water crisis in many communities. Even with unusually heavy rains and snowfall in areas that were running low, it’s only a temporary solution. The future of sustainable wastewater treatment will be in recycling water.

While people may be grossed out by the thoughts of the sewer water being cleaned of waste and bacteria, treated to ensure it’s safe for drinking and household use, and returned to public water systems, it’s important for sustainability.

Biological treatments that help treat wastewater and turn it into crystal clear, contaminant-free drinking water are essential in the evolving nation. Lakeside Equipment is excited to be at the heart of this future in wastewater treatment.

Lakeside Equipment has been helping people gain cleaner water for nearly 100 years. We’ve been there through many advancements and are excited for the future. Reach us online or by phone to learn more about steps you can take to establish eco-friendly biological wastewater technologies within your district.

As snow melts, heavy spring rains hit, and winds pick up, a lot of trash and debris ends up in the nation’s waterways. In Oregon, the Willamette River’s trash has become a major concern. 

The organization Willamette Riverkeeper takes out as much as 432 yards of trash annually.  Efforts have been heightened to get the state and municipalities to create better programs making it easier for visitors, residents, and the area’s homeless to dispose of trash properly.

This isn’t the only place dealing with excessive amounts of trash. Volunteers in Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri recorded the amount of trash they were pulling from the Mississippi River. Of the items they logged, plastic accounted for 75% of the trash. The remaining percentages were:

• Paper and wood – 9%
• Metal – 7%
• Glass – 5%
• PPE/Masks – 2%

The most common items found in the river were:

• Cigarette butts
• Food wrappers
• Beverage containers
• Foam and Styrofoam fragments
• Hard plastic pieces
• Paper/cardboard
• Plastic bags
• Tin/aluminum cans
• Plastic cups

Keeping these items out of the rivers, lakes, streams, and oceans is vital. It’s a key reason why municipalities need to look at the benefits of screening systems in waterways.

What Screens Do

Screens are used in water treatment, wastewater treatment, and hydropower plants. As wastewater or river/lake/ocean water enters a plant, it passes through screens that capture objects. Screens can capture dead animals, branches and logs, trash, leaves, and other larger particles.

If those items entered into the process of treating and cleaning water, it could lead to equipment damage, faster wear and tear on motors and pumps, and clogs. Plants pay less for repairs and replacement parts, which saves money over time.

There are different types of screens, but the process is always similar. They have mesh screens that capture items. Then, trash rakes or rake teeth pull them from the screen and move them to bins for composting or a landfill. 

Some facilities use incinerators, which use waste-to-energy to help generate power used by the plant. This makes it possible for the next stages of water treatment, such as sludge removal, to take place.

Explore the Different Types of Screens

What are the different options when it comes to screens? We recommend Raptor® equipment. These are the options to consider.

Raptor® Complete Plant

If you want a plant that can screen solids and waste materials and remove grit in one, the Raptor® Complete Plant is the system for you. Add a manual or automated grease trap, too. It handles flow rates of up to 4 million gallons per day.

The components are pre-assembled, which makes it easy to install the entire system and have it up and running in little time. It also costs less than a designed system as it’s pre-engineered.

Raptor® FalconRake® Bar Screen

This heavy-duty bar screen is ideal for high use with high removal loads in water treatment plants, septage pump systems, and combined sewer systems. The link system can lift half a ton without a problem. Rakes grab materials from the bottom of a channel and raise them upwards to the top where solids are removed into containers for further processing. 

The construction is corrosion-resistant, and there are no bearings, bushings, guides, or sprockets in the lower areas of the equipment, which ensures the drive system is fully above water. This makes maintenance simple. This design also helps prevent jams.

Raptor® Fine Screen

A Fine Screen system is ideal for removing troublesome solids like fats, oil, and grease. Varied screen bars sit in the bottom of a tank and have a rotating rake that continually cleans the cylindrical screens when the water level reaches a specific point.

Debris is disposed of in a bin after being compacted and dewatered thanks to the help of a screw conveyor. It’s possible to get a weather protection system that protects it from as cold as -13ºF. 

Raptor® Micro Strainer

The Micro Strainer is a good choice for small treatment facilities. A cylindrical basket fits in a lower chamber and spins while screening out solids and debris. Those solids move up a tube with the help of a screw conveyor. They’re compacted and dewatered before moving to a container for composting, trash, or incineration. 

There’s a single drive, which helps keep maintenance requirements to a minimum. The Micro Strainer is often used in submersible pump stations and manholes. It’s also a good choice for industrial plants that pre-treat wastewater before it moves on to the sewer system.

Raptor® Multi-Rake Bar Screen

This multi-rake bar screen is positioned within a tank with screen bars (think of ladder rungs) that go up from the floor to the top. They pick up solids as the screen bars rise, and those items are deposited out of the bar screen when it reaches the top of the tank with the help of rakes. Rakes scrape all items off the bar before that bar lowers back down.

A chain guide ensures constant motion at the desired speed. The entire multi-rake bar screen is corrosion-resistant due to the stainless-steel construction. If there’s a jam, the system automatically reverses to clear it. Rakes clean the bar screens as they go and can be replaced as needed. As an added benefit, it’s possible to get this system on a hinged system to make it easy to swing out of the channel when maintenance is necessary.

Raptor® Rotary Strainer Screen

With the Rotary Strainer Screen, water comes into the self-contained tank where a horizontal cylinder of heavy-duty wire awaits. The openings of that wire range from 0.01 to 0.1 inches and a spray bar and blade assembly with automatic cleaning. Water passes through the mesh and solids are captured on the wire mesh and are then cleared of solids.

The solids pass through a discharge chute into a bin for composting or whatever your plant does. Everything is above ground, which makes maintenance easy to manage. The rotary strainer screen is used in multiple settings, including pre-treatment measures in wineries and food processing plants and fine screening in wastewater treatment plants.

Raptor® Rotating Drum Screen

The removal of small particles is completed with ease with the Rotating Drum Screen. It’s very efficient and has a high removal rate, which meets the requirements of Membrane Biological Reactors. You can get a wedge wire basket or perforated plate with openings of 0.2 to 0.25 inches.

As the waste and materials are screened out, it’s dewatered and compacted, reducing volume by half. It reduces the waste’s weight by as much as 67%, so the cost of landfill disposal is less. It has a single drive and stainless steel construction for long life and minimal maintenance.

Raptor® Septage Acceptance Plant

If your plant accepts septage hauled in from residential homes and businesses, the Septage Acceptance Plant screens, dewaters, and compacts the solids. The septage is pumped out of trucks and into a system with cylindrical screen bars. Rakes scrape the bars to prevent clogs. 

It’s a stainless-steel design that resists corrosion, and it works faster so haulers can unload quickly. You can add a second inlet so that two trucks can unload at the same time.

Raptor® Septage Complete Plant

While there’s the Septage Acceptance Plant, there’s also the Raptor® Septage Complete Plant, which is automated and completes screening and grit removal at the same time. Everything is pre-assembled for fast, hassle-free installation.

Work With Lakeside Equipment

Lakeside Equipment is here to help you explore the best options for your water cleaning goals and budget. Whether you’re starting out or need to completely upgrade your older screens with more efficient options, we have the solution you need.

Many companies in the food and beverage industry create massive amounts of wastewater each day. Take beer for example. A pint of beer is around 95% water, but far more water is used up making that pint of beer. It’s estimated that you need as much as seven gallons of water to make one gallon of beer. Of that, about 70% of that water is discharged as wastewater to city sewers.

Now, think about it this way. The entire U.S. beer industry sold just over 203 million barrels of beer during 2019 One barrel is about 31 gallons, so about 6.29 trillion gallons of beer were sold in 2019. That means more than 44 trillion gallons of water were used to make all of that beer and an estimated 30.8 trillion gallons became wastewater.

That’s just the beer industry. If you think about all of the other food and beverage industries that produce wastewater, it’s easy to see how problems arise. If you have a wastewater district that accepts wastewater from the area’s breweries, meat processing plants, dairy plants, wineries, etc. that’s a lot of liquid. Too much poses the risk of overwhelming a plant. If the wastewater is released before it’s treated, it can harm the area’s wildlife and increase pollutants in area water sources. This is why it’s so important for the food and beverage industry to carefully consider wastewater solutions.

What’s in Your Wastewater?

You need to consider what’s in the effluent you produce. Wastewater treatment plants must meet local, state, and/or federal guidelines on the contaminants in water that’s released. Bacteria like coliform must meet the maximum levels. Restrictions are also in place for things like biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, phosphorus, nitrogen, and total suspended solids.

Breweries often produce high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. That’s the first part of the problem. Grains and hops must be filtered to prevent them from clogging lines. Plus, the gritty grains can damage equipment. There’s also the sludge from the yeast. If you’re a contributor to the higher levels of suspended solids, bacteria, and nutrients, you may pay sizable fees to be connected to that wastewater district.

A plant that processes poultry, pork, or beef may contribute to higher coliform counts due to the animals’ intestinal tracts and feces that are removed and rinsed from the floors. Ammonia counts can be higher with larger animals that urinate on the floors. Fat from the animal and its blood also poses a problem.

Dairy plants that make cheese or yogurt have bacteria that are flushed away at the end of the production cycle. Like a meat processing plant, there are also fats and greases to consider.

How Can Companies Better Manage Their Wastewater?

If you look at the amount of water used by many companies in the food and beverage industry, it’s substantial. The amount of wastewater produced is also immense. It often becomes cost-effective for companies to recycle their water for reuse or start the cleaning process before the effluent goes to a local wastewater treatment plant. These companies have implemented wastewater solutions within their businesses.

Alchemist Brewery in Vermont

Take Alchemist Brewery in Vermont for instance. The popularity of Heady Topper and Focal Banger had people coming from around the world to try the beer. When the demand became too much at their second facility, they decided to open a visitor’s center in Stowe and open a cannery in Waterbury. The brewery has a lot of organic matter from the yeast, hops, grains, and malt sugars. They started sending them to Vermont Technical College’s anaerobic digesters to create energy and fertilizer for area farms.

At the same time, the visitor center had room for the brewery to put in its own water treatment system. The wastewater goes into a settling tank before going to the pumping tank. Solids go to an aerobic digester where as much as 6,500 gallons are treated each week. The water that’s sent back to the water district is already cleaned, which lessens the impact on the wastewater treatment plant.

Two Cheesemakers Install Their Own Wastewater Treatment Plants

Cheesemakers process a lot of cream and milk with cultures that turn it into curds and whey. Those curds become some of the cheeses people buy at specialty shops and grocery stores. Not only is water consumption high, but the whey and bacteria become a lot for a water treatment plant to process. Rothenbühler Cheese aimed to solve this by adding an on-site water treatment plant.

A few years ago, Rothenbühler Cheese hired a wastewater treatment expert to design and install an anaerobic wastewater treatment system containing pumps that send the wastewater to a digester tank. It continues to a membrane bioreactor. The biogas that’s produced during water treatment is captured and used in the plant’s dual-fuel boiler.

Montchevre is another cheesemaker that installed an anaerobic digestion system after weighing the pros and cons of anaerobic digestion and sequencing batch reactors (SBR). This system cleans the wastewater and produces electricity from the resulting biogas at the same time. While you might think the cost of installing such a system is expensive, they were able to use special funding programs from the government to afford the upgrades.

Sometimes Wastewater Districts Must Expand

Some wastewater districts expand their treatment plants instead. In North Carolina, production at the Tyson chicken processing plant steadily increased, but that also put the wastewater district at max capacity. Heavy rains were putting the plant at risk of releasing untreated effluent, which is not ideal. While the district has no restriction on the amount of wastewater that can be released into the area river, there are limits on the biological oxygen demand.

To resolve this problem, the town officials decided it’s time to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant to make sure that the equipment does an exceptional job of treating the water. With a plant expansion, the district cleans the water, releases it to the river, and doesn’t change the biological oxygen demand. Experts in wastewater treatment will help design the upgraded system.

If your town needs to look at increasing capacity, it’s important. Recover the cost by working with area food and beverage manufacturers to upgrade and enlarge your wastewater treatment plant.

What if You’re Short on Space?

A Package Extended Aeration Treatment Plant is a good solution for those in the food and beverage industry. It has a compact design, which is ideal for a company that doesn’t have a lot of space available.

What does this all-in-one water treatment system include? It’s designed to screen, aerate, clarify, disinfect, and contain sludge in one tank. This makes it very easy to install. You get a Closed Loop Reactor Process where the mixing and extended aeration take place in an outer loop before it goes to the inner Spiraflo Clarifier for the final settling process.

Is your water district looking for ways to be more cost-effective and efficient? Do you own a food or beverage company? If you think an on-site treatment plant could help your impact on your area wastewater treatment plant, see what it would take to build your own small plant. You may find you save money by reducing or stopping the fees you pay to be part of that district.

Lakeside Equipment’s specialists help design systems of all sizes. Let us know what your goals are and what budget you have. We’ll help you establish a wastewater treatment system that matches your needs.

Running a wastewater treatment plant requires a lot of thought when it comes to safe operations, fiscal responsibility, and keeping an eye on future needs. A wastewater treatment plant manager has to know how to maximize any request for proposal (RFP). Any company can ask for bids for upgrades and repairs, but an RFP often takes a lot of negotiation and tough choices to lead to exceptional results.

How do you maximize your RFP for wastewater treatment? The most important decision you’ll make cannot be rushed. You want to give possible contractors a clear picture. From there, you’ll need to take your time selecting the best team for the work. These steps can help you arrange the best contractor for your needs.

Lay Out Your Goals

Make sure you clearly lay out your reason for the project, the current set-up, and what the goals are. Give a description of your municipality including how many miles you serve, the population, and any budgetary information you can share. How is the wastewater treatment plant funded? Is it through property taxes, fees, grants, etc.?

Go over the budget for any improvements or repairs. The companies that you’ll work with do need to know if your financial goals are manageable. For that budget, what do you expect?

While you’re going through your goals, bring up the purpose for the RFP. Are you looking to be more efficient or increase the number of households you support? You want to choose a wastewater treatment contractor who meets local, state, and federal laws and regulations. Make sure you’re clear regarding how long you plan to work with this contractor. Will you be working with the contractor just for this project or are you also looking for someone to help with the repairs and maintenance over the decades?

As you discuss repairs and maintenance, you’ll want to cover other aspects of wastewater management like the management of construction workers and projects. You may want to work with a contractor who will arrange where the biosolids go when they’re removed during the wastewater treatment process. Will they be helping secure the chemicals and required testing?

Create a Complex Picture of Your Treatment Plant

When you’re writing out your RFP, present a full picture of your current plant’s design. You want to share the location, your acreage, the current layout, and the equipment you own. Talk about the plant’s capacity and average daily flow. Your plant should have a permit from the EPA, what is your NPDES permit number?

Once you go over what you currently have, discuss what the improvements need to include. If you’re often reaching your plant’s maximum daily flow, you’ll want to increase that. Where do you need the new plant capacity to be? Are you adding grit removal, improving your screens, or seeking energy-efficient changes? Do you want equipment that requires less routine maintenance?

When the water is treated, where does it go? Does it go into a local body of water or into water storage or reservoirs where it goes back to homes and businesses in that municipality? What types of pump stations are needed to get the water from these storage tanks or reservoirs back to homes and businesses? That’s another consideration that your RFP must mention. Give a list of locations and their flow rates.

Through each step of wastewater, including pump stations and reservoirs, is the city responsible for maintenance, or are you looking for a contractor to arrange the maintenance in these areas? Do you want the contractor to help find the right maintenance crew?

Be Clear About Contact Information

Provide updated contact information for possible contractors who have additional questions. Provide both phone and email and check messages at both. Some people may have more time to respond by email than phone or vice versa. If you’re amenable to both contact methods, you’ll get more responses. Give a deadline for questions so that you have time to answer them and schedule interviews and plant tours.

Take time to answer everyone. Even if the answer is “we’re going a different way,” it’s common courtesy to give a response. If you ever are in a position where you’ll need to work with a different contractor in the future, you haven’t upset anyone by ignoring their questions or proposal.

Don’t Forget the Equal Opportunity Requirements

It is your legal responsibility to make it clear that you will not be engaging in any discriminatory practices. When you select a contractor, you’re not basing your decision on gender identity, race, nationality, disability, religion, etc. You welcome everyone to apply, including veterans and aged workers.

Arrange a Tour Date and Timelines for Decisions

For contractors to come up with the right quote, they need time to tour the facility. Provide tours on a few dates so that every interested contractor can find a date that works with his or her schedule. Make sure you’re there for the tour and address any questions that arise during the tour.

About a month after the tours take place, set that as the date you require all proposals to be submitted. If you’ll be interviewing, follow the proposal deadline with the interviews. You want to narrow down your list of contractors shortly after the interviews.

Once you have selected your first choice, start the negotiation process. That will be the final step to awarding the contract to the winning company. In all, you want to do this at least six months before you want your project to start. That way, the contractor has time to schedule the project and get the equipment and supplies ordered in time.

Give Clear Instructions for Proposal Submissions

Give a step-by-step guide to how proposals need to be submitted and where they need to be delivered or mailed. If you want multiple hard copies and/or a PDF proposal, be clear about it. Give a date and time for those proposals to reach your office. Include the name, address, fax number, and email. Finish this up with a statement that you are not responsible for mail delays or lost emails and faxes if you even agree to receive the proposals electronically.

You want contractors to detail their qualifications, experience, cost proposal, and project details. Training and qualifications need to be given to every person who will be working on your wastewater treatment project.

Have a plan in place for any protests from contractors who are not awarded the contract or who become upset that they submitted a proposal that you never received. Give them a deadline to submit complaints and go over how to submit them.

Have a Back-Up Plan

What happens if you don’t like any of the proposals? Have a plan in place for this situation. If no one meets your needs, you’ll need to start the process over. While this isn’t ideal, you have to put the public and City budgets and needs first. If all proposals are too high or will take too long to complete, you may need to go back to the drawing board and see if there are ways to scale down your goals.

Be Open and Honest

As the public is usually the group paying for the cost of upgrades beyond any applicable grants, you need to be open and honest. Proposals have to be part of the public records for taxpayers to look at. Be clear about the scope of the project and why the improvements or project is needed.

If you take time with your RFP and are clear about the scope of the project, you’ll end up with great proposals. You don’t want to partner with a wastewater treatment contractor that leaves you and, therefore, your taxpayers hanging.

Lakeside Equipment has close to 100 years of experience in water treatment. We have a solid team of engineers who work with you during every step of your installation or improvements. We help you come up with a wastewater treatment design that matches your city’s needs and budgets. Give us a call to discuss your project.

Have you ever wondered how much wastewater ends up in the ocean? Concerns grew when Japan announced they wanted to release 1.25 million tons of wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. The country’s prime minister promised the wastewater would be treated, but there are still concerns about the impact on the aquatic life and fishing industry.

The Nature Conservancy released a shocking report in 2020 that alarmed some people. The environmental organization reported that the percentage of untreated wastewater released into oceans and seas worldwide was as high as 80%. In the Caribbean alone, it’s as high as 85%.

Is it concerning that this amount of untreated wastewater enters the oceans and seas around the world? Yes, but it’s also a good thing as it’s a correctable problem. It’s something that people can work on changing. The U.S. already has many measures in place to keep this from happening, but it’s not a perfect system in the U.S. either.

Cruise ships and other large vessels can dump raw sewage into the ocean or sea as long as the ship is more than three miles away from the coast. Some cruise lines have onboard wastewater treatment systems to help reduce pollution, but not all of them do.

There’s also the issue of microplastics making their way into the waterways from wastewater treatment plants. A British study found that high quantities of microplastics were found downstream of six wastewater treatment plants. Even though the wastewater had been treated, microplastics remained behind. Additives that can remove the microplastics affect fish, but the microplastics are equally harmful as they hold onto chemicals that harm fish. Plastic pollution in wastewater is one topic being focused on during Stockholm’s World Water Week in August.

Could steps be taken to ensure only clean water is released into our oceans, seas, and rivers that feed into saltwater? It’s possible, and the U.S. already takes some steps to make sure wastewater meets a rigid set of standards.

The Role of the Clean Water Act in the U.S.

Part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s job is to issue permits to wastewater districts around the country. Through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, municipal wastewater treatment plants apply for permits to operate. Once approved, the plant has strict guidelines to follow regarding the allowable levels of different contaminants found in the water. Failing to meet the guidelines can lead to hefty fines.

Before wastewater treatment plants can release treated wastewater, they must meet the standards outlined in the Clean Water Act and the permit granted to that community’s wastewater district. The EPA keeps a Priority Pollutant List that contains dozens of pollutants that plants must remove from wastewater before it’s released to a river, stream, pond, lake, ocean, or sea. On this list are things like arsenic, asbestos, benzene, copper, lead, etc. Bacteria and viruses also must be removed.

Additional steps must be taken before wastewater goes into saltwater. For example, alpha-Endosulfan must be less than 0.034 or 0.0087 micrograms per liter. Arsenic must be no more than 36 or 69 micrograms per liter. The chlorine used to kill bacteria must be lowered to 7.5 or 13 micrograms per liter of treated wastewater before it’s released. The Recommended Water Quality Criteria contains the rules to freshwater and wastewater that treatment plants must follow.

Leaks and Problems That Threaten Our Oceans

How often do wastewater treatment plants leak into the ocean? It occurs more often than you might think.

In April, experts found a leak at a wastewater reservoir in Tampa, Florida. Around 480 million gallons of wastewater had to be removed due to the threat of flooding after one leak in a containment wall was discovered. The Piney Point waste station had closed down 20 years earlier following a bankruptcy. Had the reservoir’s walls burst, it would have flooded the area and made its way to the ocean.

A Seattle wastewater treatment plant leaked raw sewage at the end of April. Days later, the same thing happened, making two sewage spills happen in Puget Sound. In the first spill, around 1,700 gallons of untreated wastewater went into Elliott Bay. The second spill leaked approximately 880,000 gallons. Both of these spills were caused when a backup power supply failed during routine testing and maintenance. This wasn’t the first time this plant has had issues. Another spill happened in January and involved 11 million gallons of untreated wastewater.

Quincy, Massachusetts, faced a lawsuit filed by the EPA after untreated sewage and wastewater leaked into Boston Harbor in 2019. As part of the settlement, the city agreed to invest over $100 million in upgrades and repairs of its wastewater treatment plant.

Another city slapped with a lawsuit was Sunnyvale, California. Lawyers for the city requested the charges be dismissed, but a federal court judge ruled against them. In the end, the city was fined $187,000 because close to 300,000 gallons of wastewater leaked into San Francisco Bay. The spill occurred due to antiquated piping that is more than 100 years old in some areas.

Back in 2020, Portland, Maine, also dealt with a spill during a power failure. The exact amount of untreated wastewater that went into Casco Bay is unknown as the computer system also went down in the power outage. It’s estimated that around 4 million gallons ended up in the ocean. That was the second leak in two years.

Two dozen New Jersey communities were given four extra months to develop better wastewater treatment plans to stop raw sewage spills during heavy rains. The communities’ wastewater treatment plants often end up spilling wastewater into the ocean during a storm, and the EPA demanded new Long Term Control Plans be filed. The pandemic led to a four-month delay, but those cities and towns had to have plans in place and came up with a plan that would cost around $3.5 billion in infrastructure improvements.

In many of these recent leaks, outdated piping and wastewater treatment plant equipment were to blame. It’s essential to check backup generators regularly and test equipment. If piping or equipment is getting old, it’s time to look into replacing systems. Repairs work for a time, but a complete replacement can help lower energy costs, saving money in the long run.

How Can Your Wastewater District Help Keep Untreated Wastewater Out of the Ocean?

If wastewater treatment plants located near oceans make sure their equipment meets the current demand, it lowers the risk of untreated wastewater reaching the saltwater. Have a qualified company look at your plant’s design and make sure your equipment can meet heavy loads.

Heavy loads include unexpected amounts of runoff during a storm. When families use more water in the morning before getting to work or return from work and have dishes to wash and laundry to run, it increases the amount of wastewater entering the sewer system. This puts a burden on the equipment if the system isn’t designed for a sudden rush of sewage.

Towns and cities continue to grow. If your wastewater treatment plant was designed decades ago, it might not be operating efficiently. A small investment in new pumps, automated screening, automated process controls, and upgraded grit collection makes a big difference.

Lakeside Equipment has experts ready to help you make sure your wastewater treatment plant is doing everything possible to meet and exceed the requirements needed to ensure you’re releasing clean water into the ocean. Give us a call to learn more.

While sewer systems started centuries ago, sewage grinders are newer. They originated in the 1970s to help wastewater treatment plants handle the increase in sewage trucked in from homes and businesses that used septic systems due to the distance to the city sewers. By grinding the sewage pumped from septic tanks, it eliminated some of the clogs that could happen.

Industrial sewage grinders benefit many businesses and wastewater treatment plants. They’re used in apartment buildings, restaurants, food processing plants, and septage acceptance plants. Suppose you own a brewery with an independent water treatment system to ease the burden on the municipal treatment plant. An industrial sewage grinder can help break up any grains, hop flowers, and flavoring additives like cacao nibs or fruit that slip through screening steps.

Why should you take this step? It can keep your repair costs down by preventing problems before they occur. That’s one reason to look into this system. Or, if you’re plagued by blockages caused by organic and inorganic materials, it’s time to look at the benefits of a sewage grinder. How do you choose the right grinder pump for your needs? Start by understanding how a grinder works.

How Does a Sewage Grinder Work?

Have you ever used a garbage disposal system? If so, you’ll have an idea of what an industrial sewage grinder does. It grinds food particles in a residence before the wastewater continues its way to a sewer system. Some homes have garbage disposals on a septic system, but that’s not advised as the food particles can lead to issues in a septic tank and leach field.

While similar, a sewage grinder is designed for intense use. A sewage grinder pump has a plate at the bottom of the pump that grinds up materials before they’re pumped to a sewer head. The goal is to make sure any solids are small enough particles that they will not clog a line.

The sewage grinder sits in a large fiberglass basin. As wastewater comes in, solids sink to the bottom. When the unit turns on, the grinder’s blades spin and grind the items into small pieces that mix with the fluids to become a slurry. The pump pushes the slurry into the pipe and moves it towards the sewer pipes to continue the journey to the wastewater treatment plant.

An industrial sewage grinder is helpful in food processing plants, restaurants, breweries, and wineries. Before the wastewater heads to a sewer system, organics get ground up. Hop flowers, chicken feathers and skin, small bone fragments, and grape skins and stems are some of the items these grinders are equipped to handle.

You may want to look into one for your hotel or apartment complex. Some things that get flushed by residents can pose a serious issue in sewer lines and wastewater treatment plants. With a line to a sewer suddenly clogged, you have residents dealing with backed-up toilets and sinks. Affording the cleaning costs and damages gets expensive.

Flushable wipes and flushable cat litter aren’t as flushable as people might think. While you don’t want your residents flushing these items, you can’t always stop them. Fecal matter is another issue that can cause clogs in the pipes leaving the building’s basement. By installing a grinder pump, you can help the wastewater district avoid damage to equipment and clogs by grinding these items in a slurry before it travels to the sewers.

Choosing the Best Industrial Grinder Pumps for Your Needs

How do you choose an industrial grinder pump? Much of your decision is based on your industry and distance to a sewer line. The farther you are from the sewer, the stronger a pump you need.

#1 – What’s Your Company’s or District’s Goal?

What is the pump used for? Is it a residential complex or a food processing plant? That also makes a difference. A residential complex may not have loads of food scraps going down the drain all day, while an industrial plant may not have items like flushable wipes.

#2 – What is the Top Flow Rate?

One or more grinder pumps are in that basin where the wastewater collects. What happens next depends on the pump’s design. Some are operated manually, but others have floats that activate the pump. When the float reaches the top, the pump turns on, grinds the organic and inorganic materials, and pumps out all of those grounds and wastewater. Faster flow rates may require the pump to turn on more often. It would be best if you sized the pump to match the speed of the flow.

In some settings, you might find the wastewater flows more at certain hours. If this is the case, a pump that is manually operated may suit your needs. If you can’t predict when the pump will need to run, you need one that runs automatically when the float rises or at timed intervals. You need a pump that handles the max flow rate, not the average flow.

#3 – How Much of an Incline Does the Wastewater Experience?

What is your plant’s or building’s design? You need the pressure to get the wastewater up the slope if you’re downhill from the main sewer line. Do you have gravity helping the flow of sewage? You may need less horsepower if you’re downhill from the sewer as you have gravity helping. The grinder pump’s horsepower is essential if you deal with more lift to get the sewage uphill.

#4 – What Are the Local Codes?

Get to know the local codes to ensure your system is in compliance. This is why it’s often better to talk to an expert in sewer design. It saves you from expensive fines down the road.

#5 – Do You Have a Large Budget for Maintenance?

The lifespan of an industrial sewage grinder varies depending on the usage, whether the right grinder was installed, and flow rates. Maintenance helps extend the life, but there comes a time when you have to replace your grinder due to age or extensive maintenance.

What’s your operating budget? Do you have maintenance around regularly for routine maintenance? Do you use contractors? That can also make a difference. Most pumps are designed to be trouble-free, but things like sealed bearings that never need to be greased are worth looking at.

An industrial sewage grinder system is one of the greatest investments certain businesses and wastewater treatment plants can make. It comprises the grinder pump, a basin, the electricals, piping, and valves, making it something best left to a professional to install. You still should look at the goals of a sewage grinder and understand the options to understand better what type of pump is best for your needs.

Lakeside Equipment is happy to help you choose a suitable replacement for your industrial sewage grinder. Our engineers work with you to come up with the right system for your needs and budget. Give us a call to learn more about grinder pumps for your industrial needs.

The 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure gave the nation’s wastewater infrastructure a lousy grade. There are over 16,000 wastewater treatment facilities in the U.S. What’s alarming is that 80% of them are nearing capacity, and 15% are at or over capacity. In 2019, the gap between the money needed for repairs and upgrades versus what was spent was over $80 billion.

When cities and municipalities receive money for upgrades and maintenance, they must prioritize where to spend the money. It’s equally important to properly use the money from the home and business owners in your wastewater district. Before making any improvements, carefully plan how to best spend the money you’ve set aside. What equipment should you upgrade first to maximize your district’s infrastructure? What can you do to lower costs and improve efficiency?

Factor the Growth Within Your Community

Before making any changes, it’s time to sit down and look at the growth trends in your municipality. How much population growth has happened in the past year, five years, or ten years? How long with your current setup before you reach capacity? Are you already there?

If the city is growing faster than your facility can manage, it’s something that you must address with city developers and planners. Impact fees can help offset the burden of each new home on your community’s infrastructure. Make sure those fees bring in the money needed to grow your wastewater treatment plant at a rate that keeps up with the changes. If not, it’s important to speak up sooner rather than later.

You don’t want to run into issues where the wastewater coming in is too much and requires emergency measures. Often, untreated sewage gets released into a lake or river. The fines for this can be excessive, so you have to plan for growth carefully.

Fines aren’t the only issue. In October, a wastewater treatment plant in Maryland had diluted, untreated sewage release into St. George Creek, affecting an oyster farm. The farm’s owners had no idea this had happened and harvested thousands of oysters that refrigerated and shipped to festivals in Northern Virginia. Over two dozen people who ate those oysters became ill, so there is a risk of lawsuits related to food poisoning cases on top of fines.

Invest in Alternative Energy

It’s estimated that up to 10% of a municipality’s budget goes towards energy bills. Much of this comes from the energy needed to run a wastewater treatment plant. You have motors, pumps, computers, and other wastewater equipment running all day and night throughout the year. Electricity alone eats up as much as 40% of a wastewater treatment plant’s operating costs. Saving money isn’t as hard as you might think.

A Palmyra, Wisconsin, wastewater treatment facility upgraded its aerators, reducing energy consumption by 50% and lowering electricity bills by over $1,000 every month.

A Chapel Hill, North Carolina wastewater treatment plant upgraded the aeration system and mixers, saving almost $30,000 a month.

In 2010, Appleton, Wisconsin, added a biogas (methane) boiler to the facility. That change saved the plant more than $8,300 per month. After rebates, the plan spent just over $500,000 for the boiler. Within five years, it’s expected the savings will have offset the expenditure.

Those were minor, cost-effective upgrades that led to impressive savings. It gets even better.

A wastewater district in the Boston area saved around $1.5 million each year by undergoing an energy audit to find where to best make changes. They didn’t make these changes overnight.

Over a decade, the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District spent about $4.5 million making smaller changes like upgrading the aeration system and adding variable-speed pumping system drives. It replaced older lighting with energy-efficient fixtures, installed solar panels, and insulated the digesters.

California’s Moulton Niguel Water District, logical controllers and variable-frequency drives were installed to control pump speeds. The facility saved about $300,000 per year by upgrading to energy-efficient equipment. If you made similar changes at your plant, you could save thousands and offset the cost of the improvements in little time.

The methane produced during wastewater treatment can heat your plant. Upgrade your heating system to trap the methane and reuse it as your primary heating fuel. You don’t have to spend thousands on natural gas, wood, heating fuels, or electricity. Renewable energy is the responsible, cost-effective way to start heating your plant. It also reduces greenhouse gasses.

If you haven’t looked into solar or wind power, it’s time to consider it. You can add solar panels to roofs or empty land. There are solar systems that float on wastewater treatment ponds. If it’s windy in your area, tapping into the wind’s power also helps you generate the electricity needed to power your wastewater treatment facility.

Consider the Savings Gained With Newer Equipment

How much of your equipment is older? Before you consider the changes to make, you should inventory the equipment you have, its age, and how much of your time is spent maintaining it. If you have equipment that is being shut down for maintenance each day or several days per week, it’s time to look into replacing it.

Learn how the energy is used within your plant. Outdated equipment will use a lot of energy, so replacing them helps lower your costs. But, there are other aspects to consider. If a room is empty for hours, do the lights get turned off, or are they on anyway. Motion-activated lighting might be a worthwhile improvement. Are light fixtures older with fluorescent bulbs, or have you upgraded to cheaper LED fixtures?

Upgrading your equipment is an excellent way to reduce your energy consumption. Older pumps use a lot more energy than new pumps designed with energy efficiency in mind. Pumps constantly run as pumps move the wastewater up hills and from one station to another before moving it to the mainline to go into the wastewater treatment plant. The wastewater is pumped through screens and grit removers before going to clarifiers. Sludge and grit are pumped out to be composted, sent to the landfill, or to incinerators. These pumps are always running, and that drives up costs.

Fine bubble aeration is one of the many effective ways to lower costs. If you’re using older aeration systems, upgrading is a smart move. Adding systems that automate the process helps you save more money on electricity bills. Together, aeration and pumping make up an average of 70% of a plant’s energy usage.

Where do you start? The best improvements come down to your current plant design. Automated process controls are one of the first steps to take if you want to reduce energy consumption. If you haven’t automated your plant, it’s time. With a Sharp BNR process control system’s Programmable Logic Controller, water treatment processes are monitored 24/7, and aeration is increased and decreased as needed to maximize efficiency.

Lakeside Equipment’s experts can discuss your goals and help you choose the best areas to upgrade. You’ll gain efficiency while meeting the increasing demand in a growing community. Talk to us about your treatment goals to better understand where your current system isn’t doing as much as it should.

When did you last update your wastewater treatment plant? Have you considered the benefits of upgrading? Some municipalities don’t plan improvements until violations or compliance warnings hit. Save money by making upgrades to your wastewater treatment plant now rather than when it’s too late.

Why would you need to make changes if you haven’t been notified of a violation? One of the biggest reasons is that the guidelines change as studies lead to new information. Guidelines for wastewater treatment change from time to time. It’s up to you to keep up with the changes.

2022 Changes to Final Effluent Guidelines

The EPA’s Final Effluent Guidelines Program was published on January 11, 2021. Already, several changes have been recommended for Preliminary Plan 15. They include:

• Addressing PFAS discharges in chromium electroplating facilities and operations
• Altering discharge standards for the meat and poultry industry, particularly focusing on phosphorus and nitrogen
• Changing the limits for OCPSF (Organic Chemicals, Plastics, and Synthetic Fibers) regarding PFAS
• Creating Supplemental Rulemaking for Steam Electric Power Generating (coal power plants)
• Publishing the results of completed studies regarding PFAS in various industries, including canned seafood, explosives, landfills, metal products/machinery, soap/detergent, etc.
• Studying PFAS discharges from landfills, carpet manufacturers, and textile mills

When guidelines change, industries need to keep up. Does your plant have a wastewater treatment facility to treat water before releasing it to a body of water or sewer? It’s important to make the necessary upgrades to comply with the regulations. If you manage a wastewater treatment facility for your municipality, it’s also essential to make sure you’re meeting current EPA guidelines.

The Clean Waters Act Applies to the Majority of People

In the U.S., any municipality, business, or person is prohibited from discharging pollutants into a body of water. The only exception is a party named on a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. This permit authorizes the permit holder to release pollutants (up to the specified level).

Wastewater treatment plants have NPDES permits, but they also have rules they must follow. Wastewater is screened to remove things like wrappers, baby wipes, etc. It may go through grinder pumps to break heavier materials. It then goes through grit removal, primary sedimentation, and secondary treatment. In secondary treatment, organic matter is removed using methods like aeration and secondary clarification.

When the water is treated, and bacteria and chemical agents (if used) have done their part, the remaining cleaned water must meet the levels outlined in the permit. There are maximum levels given for the agency’s Priority Pollutant List, which covers pollutants like ammonia nitrogen, arsenic, asbestos, benzene, chloroform, cyanide, lead, mercury, etc. If the wastewater doesn’t meet these levels, problems arise.

What happens if you don’t have an NPDES permit and discharge effluent or other illegal materials? The EPA can fine you up to $16,000 per day, with a cap of $187,500 per discharge.

Fines Can Strain Your Finances

When caught, the fines for compliance warnings and violations can be costly. Here are a few cases and the total fines and penalties that industries and municipalities received.

1. American Zinc

For years, American Zinc allowed processed wastewater to go into the stormwater stream, releasing excessive levels of cadmium and zinc into Aquashicola Creek. In addition, the company had several air pollution violations. A penalty of $3.3 million was levied against the company.

American Zinc was ordered to implement $4.3 million in upgrades. The order included adding equipment to detect leaks, upgrading their monitoring equipment, and developing a plan to control stormwater.

2. Churchill Downs

Factories and municipalities are not the only ones to face fines related to improper wastewater disposal. Churchill Downs was fined for years of violations in New Orleans. Over 500 horses are housed in the stables, and the manure and urine in the stables, wash racks, and walkways led to untreated wastewater going into the municipal stormwater system.

As little as half an inch of rain caused manure, urine, horse shampoo, gray water, etc., to travel from the Churchill Downs to storm drains leading to the London Avenue Canal. From there, the untreated sewage ended up in Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. These events happened over 250 times in six years, leading to close to $2.8 million in civil penalties.

In addition, Churchill Downs must spend an estimated $5.6 million to establish a system that prevents all raw sewage from reaching New Orleans’s stormwater system. This likely means the development of a small wastewater treatment plant at the facility.

3. The City of Corpus Christie, Texas

Corpus Christie, Texas, is home to six wastewater treatment facilities and over 1,250 miles of sewer pipes. Plus, there are dozens of lift stations. While the city’s wastewater plants have NPDES permits, they were caught exceeding the effluent limits. While it was unintentional, they were fined $1.136 million in penalties.

Some of the problems were caused by pipe blockages and grease, but it also came down to the equipment not keeping up with population growth. The city must clear the blockages, clean all sewer lines, improve maintenance, and better monitor plant operations and capacity. The improvements needed will cost around $600 million and will take 15 years to complete.

4. Cleveland Cliffs Burns Harbor Facility

The EPA found that this steel mill released ammonia nitrogen and cyanide into the East Branch of the Little Calumet River in Indiana. Fish were dying, and people swimming at nearby beaches were exposed to these toxins. A pump failure at the steel mill’s wastewater treatment plant was blamed.

Civil penalties of just over $3 million were levied, with half of those fines being paid by Indiana. Cleveland Cliffs Burns Harbor Facility also has to install an ammonia-N removal system by 2025 and use a lined storage pond if there is a pump failure in the future.

5. DuPont

In Orange, Texas, DuPont and Performance Materials NA, Inc. were ordered to pay $3.1 in civil penalties and legal fees for hazardous waste, air, and water pollution. Specific to the Clean Water Act, the facility released wastewater without a proper permit. Pollutants from the wastewater ended up in the Sabine River Basin.

In addition to the fine, DuPont needs to have a third party inspect the wastewater treatment system to ensure it meets the requirements set forth in the permit.

6. The City of Hattiesburg, Mississippi

In 2020, the EPA fined Hattiesburg $165,000 in civil penalties and $220,000 in a Supplemental Environmental Project after sewer overflows led to violations of the Clean Water Act and the city’s NPDES permit.

In addition to the fines, the city must spend about $14.2 million on improvements by the end of 2024. Required improvements include inspections and repairs to sewer lines and force mains, upgrades in the pump stations, and equipment to monitor flow rates. Plus, authorities also ordered enhanced training for management and workers, grease controls, an emergency response plan, and remote monitoring.

What Can You Do

The best way to avoid fines and penalties is by paying attention to the terms of your permit. Even if you think you meet the regulations, it doesn’t hurt to go back over everything. Are there any limits where your facility often comes close to missing the mark?

Do you perform maintenance regularly? If you find it hard to keep up, one of the first upgrades you should make is to look at the machinery that reduces the need for constant maintenance. Equipment with submerged bearings will be harder to maintain. Stainless steel construction won’t rust or corrode as quickly, which improves longevity.

Since 1928, Lakeside Equipment’s been helping businesses and municipalities meet their goals for clean water. Talk to our experts to learn how to upgrade your municipality’s wastewater treatment plant in ways that improve performance and efficiency while also staying cost-effective.

Polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAs for short, include thousands of chemicals found in all kinds of products. They’re an area of growing concern as they’re found in the blood of both animals and humans. PFAs are also being found in the air, the soil, and water. All of that has been a target of change for years, and the EPA is finally taking the necessary steps.

While research is ongoing, it’s believed that exposure to PFAs is harmful. That much is clear. As PFAs make their way into the water, removing them from wastewater is important. It’s leading to advancements in the processes that can be used to remove PFAs from wastewater in wastewater treatment plants and grant money communities can apply for to have financial help at upgrading their equipment.

What Are PFAs?

So, what are PFAs? PFAs are manufactured chemicals found in many household and commercial products. They’re called “forever chemicals” because they don’t easily break down. They’re there building up in the soil, groundwater, and the air.

Many PFAs contain organic fluorine and carbons. Carbon-fluorine is one of the strongest bonds there is, so PFAs last forever. Some can damage the ozone layer when they become airborne. In your body, research is ongoing into exactly what harm they cause.

When it comes to public health, the fact that PFAs don’t break down easily is alarming as studies find that 97% of people have PFAs in their bloodstream. It’s believed that PFAs can impact fertility, increase the risk of certain cancers, and reduce immune system function. PFAs may increase the risk of obesity and metabolism.

There are more than 9,000 kinds of PFAs. Do you have non-stick coatings on your pots and pans? There are PFAs in those coatings. Do you have stain-resistant clothing, furniture upholstery, or carpeting? Again, there are PFAs. You’ll find PFAs in things like cosmetics, personal care products, paint, lawn and garden pesticides, water-resistant clothing, microwave popcorn packaging, and takeout food containers.

Steps have been taken to reduce the number of PFAs in things like water bottles, food containers, and dishware, which is good as it has started to reduce the numbers of PFAs in people and the environment. But, they’re not completely gone.

The government’s attention is turning to what can be done to keep PFAs out of water that’s cleaned and released from wastewater treatment plants. The next steps are to find more effective ways at removing them from wastewater. It’s believed that a new method can help with that, and so far it’s proving to be extremely effective.

What Is the New Method of Cleaning PFAs?

University of California, Riverside found a way to clean PFAs from wastewater using a photochemical reaction. The process involves the addition of iodide and sulfite to wastewater that was in the treatment process. When those two additives are exposed to UV lighting, iodide speeds up a reaction between the PFAs and sulfite, destroying up to 90% of the PFAs in less time and with less energy. It becomes a cost-effective, effective way of removing PFAs.

If wastewater treatment plants switched to this process, it can lead to almost all of the PFAs in wastewater being removed before the wastewater goes back into lakes, rivers, and ponds. This keeps fish and animals from being exposed to as many PFAs, which in turn means humans wouldn’t be eating fish that contain higher PFA levels. Plus, it’s faster, so treatment facilities save money on energy consumption.

How Are PFAs Currently Handled in Wastewater Treatment?

Removing PFAs from wastewater or public water sources can be a costly process. The most effective methods involve the use of high-pressure membranes, anion exchange resin, and granular activated carbon that is formulated specifically to remove PFAs from wastewater. As it’s expensive, it’s not really something that many water districts have thought about until recently. Things are changing, however, as the EPA is taking steps to check for and address contaminated water systems.

In September 2021, the EPA changed three requirements to try to limit the amount of PFAs going to drinking water supplies, waters with aquatic animals, and bodies of water that are used for recreation. Before wastewater can be released to those three water supplies, PFAs from manufacturing plants, metal finishing facilities, and poultry/meat processing plants must have been treated to meet effluent guidelines.

How Could a Wastewater Treatment Plant Incorporate This New Process?

As treatment processes improve, what can you do to be ready? Start by applying for grants.

With 2022 came changes to the Clean Water Act. The new Infrastructure Law is marking millions of dollars to help fight PFAs from entering water systems. The goal is to reduce PFAs being released to bodies of water or being returned to public water systems. Even if there are no standards required in your area yet, you may need to issue health advisories if the wastewater levels exceed the EPA guidelines of:

• GenX Chemicals – 10 parts per trillion/Minimum reporting at 5 ppt
• PFBS – 2,000 parts per trillion/Minimum reporting at 3 ppt
• PFOA – 0.004 parts per trillion/Minimum reporting at 4 ppt
• PFOS – 0.02 parts per trillion/Minimum reporting at 4 ppt

Now is a good time to address making changes. In June 2022, the EPA announced $1 billion in grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These grants will be used to help establish wastewater treatment systems that can remove PFAs from drinking water supplies. If your wastewater treatment plant provides drinking water to a community, especially small or low-income communities, it’s important to apply for these grants and take the next steps to improve water quality.

Even the smallest changes can help. If there are manufacturing plants, metal finishing facilities, or meat and poultry processing plants in your area, make sure they’re treating their industrial wastewater before releasing it into sewers. They should be, and your district should be making sure they’re taking steps to properly treat wastewater before it’s released.

Right now, the tests on iodide and sulfite are still in the early stages. But, you could take some steps to get ahead and be ready to try it out. Look into UV disinfection systems. They’re currently used to help kill germs and microbes. As this technology could become helpful in removing PFAs, it’s a good time to look into using grants to upgrade your existing system with things like granular charcoal filtration and UV disinfection.

Lakeside Equipment offers a full range of equipment to help your wastewater treatment plant clean water in the most cost-effective way possible. Whether you want to upgrade existing equipment or add new equipment and filtration solutions for cleaner water, our experts can help you out. Reach us online or by phone to learn more.

On June 15th, the EPA added five new chemicals to their list of chemicals that federal, state, and local agencies must monitor for at Superfund sites across the U.S. Superfund sites are sites in the U.S. that are contaminated in some way, often it’s where manufacturing sites, landfills, or mines created tremendous pollution in the soil and groundwater. 

In the 1980s, the U.S. Congress established the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act requiring responsible parties to clean up their sites or pay the EPA to clean them. If the company or responsible parties are no longer in business or alive, the Superfund money is used in the clean-up.

In addition, the EPA is making it known that the goal is to get these chemicals out of public water sources as part of a plan to make drinking water across the nation safer for everyone. States and territories are advised to apply for grants to address these five chemicals.

These chemicals have carcinogenic potential, and it’s believed they could increase the risk of cancer for animals and humans. They also have non-cancerous effects, such as damage to the liver, the kidneys, and the immune system. By lowering exposure, it can help lower the risk of chronic health conditions that drive up healthcare costs and shorten a person’s longevity.

Several studies have come to light that have raised concern. One is that children exposed to these chemicals are not building immunities to diseases like diphtheria and tetanus after vaccines. Exposure to GenX chemicals is causing lesions on the livers of mice, and pregnant mice are giving birth to babies with deficient thyroxine levels, which causes thyroid disease. 

In order to lower exposure to them, the EPA is setting its sights on removing as much of them as possible in drinking water, which in turn can lower the amount found in foods that are processed or contain water. 

What does this mean for you? It may not mean anything. But, industrial and food processing plants may need to take a closer look to see if their industrial wastewater systems are ready to monitor for these chemicals. Down the road, water treatment plants may need to start monitoring and removing them, too.

What Are the Five Additions?

Several chemicals are already monitored, but some were created more recently or have avoided careful monitoring. So, what are these GenX chemicals and PFAs that the EPA is asking to closely monitor? Why are they being watched? 

Hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA)

HFPO-DA is not biodegradable. It’s found in food packaging, carpets, fabrics, and foams used to put out fires. Once it’s in water, it’s there until filtration removes it. Some states are being proactive and adding HFPO-DA to their drinking water standards. 

For example, Wisconsin has a recommended level of 300 ppt. Michigan set standards to 370 ppt in 2020. North Carolina found higher levels of it in surface and drinking water around Cape Fear River and established drinking water goals as a result.

Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) 

PFOs date back to the 1940s when 3M started making them, and they became a key component of Scotchgard. When they were found in human blood samples in the 1960s, it was first believed it was a related chemical. But, in the 1990s, PFOs were found in donated blood in blood banks. It wasn’t until 2000 that the chemical started to get phased out in the U.S.

It’s a problem as even wastewater treatment methods are unable to break down PFOs. They just don’t degrade. 

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)

The use of PFOA dwindled in 2002, but until then, it was widely used as a binder for coatings like Teflon or paint products designed to resist stains, oil, and water. As they resist water and heat, they don’t degrade.

One study looked at more than 2,000 people’s blood samples; almost every sample had PFOAs in the blood. The effects on health are ongoing, but some studies found that lab animals that were given large amounts suffered liver damage. 

Perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA)

PFNAs are surfactants found in everyday items such as cosmetics. They don’t degrade and are showing up in the blood of animals and humans. As a result, some states are starting to ban their use or require drinking water standards. 

In 2020, California banned the use of PFNAs in cosmetics. That same year, New Jersey became the first state to set drinking water standards to 14 ppt. A couple of months later, Michigan set a level of 8 ppt, though the U.S. EPA hadn’t set any requirements yet.

Perfluorohexane Sulfonic acid (PFHxS)

This is the most common of all the synthetic chemicals known as PFASs. It’s been banned in many areas, but it’s still showing up in the environment. It was found in fire-fighting foams, textiles, metal coatings, and polishes. 

The U.S. hasn’t set limits as of 2019, but states are taking it into their own hands. Minnesota was one of the first, aiming for 27 ppt. Michigan set their limit of 51 ppt in 2020.

What States Do Regulate These Chemicals?

Just because the EPA hasn’t taken action yet doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. These states have limits in place for public drinking water.

• Alaska – PFOS and PFOA 
• California – PFOA and PFOS 
• Colorado – PFOA and PFOS
• Connecticut – PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, and PFHpA
• Delaware – PFOA and PFOS
• Maine – PFOA and PFOS
• Massachusetts – PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, PFHpA, and PFDA
• Michigan – PFNA, PFOA, PFOS, HFPO-DA, PFBS, and PFHxA
• Minnesota – PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFBS, and PFBA 
• New Hampshire – PFOA, PFOS, and PFHxS
• New Jersey – PFNA, PFOS, and PFOA
• New Mexico – PFOA and PFOS
• New York – PFOA and PFAS 
• North Carolina – GenX
• Ohio – PFNA, PFHxS, PFOS, PFOA, GenX, and PBFS
• Vermont – PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, and PFHpA

You may already be in a state where you have to work with the limits state agencies have set. Not every state has policies though. What if you don’t. What does this mean for your water treatment plant?

Right now, these are advisories. Monitoring these contaminants is helping shape policies on lowering them to treated water. Those policies are expected to come out in the fall. Will your wastewater or public water treatment plant need to take measures to better clean the water? It’s almost a certainty that that will come next. More will be known in the fall when new guidelines come out. 

Until then, the government released money to help towns and cities improve their infrastructure. Take advantage of these grants and start looking toward the future. Systems with the best filtration methods will find more of these chemicals get removed and lead to safe water for everyone in their region.

Lakeside Equipment can help you look at your existing water treatment plant and see if there are ways to improve efficiency, performance, and save money on energy bills. Reach out to us to discuss what you wish you could change about your current system. Our engineers are happy to talk about ways to save money and improve performance.