Grant’s Blog

I recently attended a two day EPA seminar “Nutrient Control at Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants.” It was excellent. My thanks to EPA’s Roger Jansen for organizing and hosting the event, and thanks to Clifford Randall, James Barnard, David Stensel, J.B. Neethling, and incoming WEF President Jeanette Brown for the informative presentations.

I have been closely involved in the operation of some twenty wastewater treatment plants that employ nutrient removal. Over the past dozen years the Water Planet company has worked with all kinds of facilities: activated sludge, fixed media, submerged media, SBR, and membrane filtration. Our operational experience is unique. At a January 2010 conference in Boston, I will be presenting a paper entitled “Nitrogen Removal: Lessons Learned.”

I learned a lot from the academics who developed many of the modern nutrient removal strategies. In dramatic contrast to my conventional cynical view, I found myself awed to be in the presence of these geniuses. Thanks to their pioneering work (and that of others), we can now treat wastewater to even higher levels without significant expense.

Without significant expense?

Yes, the speakers reaffirmed my company’s experiences. Many – I say most – municipal treatment plants can significantly reduce their discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus with little to no capital expenses.

This is done by using existing equipment differently. Oftentimes, all that is needed is an understanding of the science and the freedom and courage to make process changes.

Thanks for reading.

Grant

I once got myself into trouble by disagreeing with a state official who penned a newspaper article proclaiming the Clean Water Fund he administered to be the “hero” of the “story” of the cleanup of Long Island Sound. I expressed my disagreement by submitting a counter position calling the Clean Water Fund “a pork barrel program,” something I now regret having written.

The Clean Water program was once an important source of funds for the construction of new treatment facilities; but nowadays, the program pumps too many millions of taxpayer dollars into the wallets of engineers, lawyers, paper-pushers, equipment suppliers and contractors, and too few dollars into clean water improvements to suit me. It is my outspoken opinion that the Clean Water Fund is a fallen hero. Taxpayers are no longer getting a good bang for their buck.

The heroes of the nation’s water cleanup stories are wastewater treatment plant operators. We are the most unsung of heroes, are we not!? Because we toil in such a low status occupation, few consider us capable. As a result, good minded people concerned about the environment ignore the folks who are in the best position to affect change: you and me. Environmentalists and municipal officials believe it necessary to bring in the “experts” to redo sewage treatment plants, and they lobby for ever more Clean Water Funds to do so.

Those of us who work at water pollution control facilities hear the message: without outside help (that is, engineers and the new equipment they dispense), we are doing as well as can be expected. We have become so accustomed to this way of thinking that we take no offense to the diss.

If not seek more funds for ever more equipment, what are we, the most hands-on water quality protectors of all, to do?

How about putting existing equipment to more effective use? It’s something I regularly write about in my blog.

When superintendents apply themselves to solving problems, the results can be dramatic: doubling nitrogen removal, slashing phosphorus, saving electricity, to name a few. Wastewater operators are the nation’s clean water experts. The machinery bought with Clean Water Funds moves wastewater around, it is us who make the water clean; something we do well and proudly.

Unfortunately, too many treatment plant managers find it in their interest to pursue multi-million dollar “Clean Water” funding for treatment plant upgrades. Many of us find it more rewarding to locate grant money for multi-million dollar projects than using municipal funds at lower ratepayer cost to finance equally effective, less grandiose work. Thankfully, an increasing number of us are looking to ourselves before we look to others for solutions. In the August 2009 edition of TPO magazine, Shenandoah, Iowa’s Greg Scott congratulated TPO on its practical approach to water quality protection by writing, “I get tired of reading about multimillion-dollar … systems [in other publications].” I second Greg’s comment.

Municipal wastewater treatment plants require ongoing investments in capital equipment. To get the money, municipalities that establish sewer rates that include the depreciation cost of their equipment instead of using state and federal tax money to care for treatment facilities, get more done for less. If everyone were to do so, there would be very little need for any Clean Water Funds anywhere, ever. Our nation’s waters would be healthier and our national debt somewhat less damaged. And, we’d all have one more thing to be proud about.

Thanks for reading.

Grant