New Ocean Shores sewage treatment plant being debugged - June 7, 1999

By JENNY LYNN ZAPPALA - DAILY WORLD WRITER, The Aberdeen Daily World

OCEAN SHORES - It doesn't look like much from the surface.

If the city's new $10 million sewage treatment plant near the North Jetty was above ground, the three-story-tall concrete chambers on three acres would be surrounded by concrete walls.

Instead, the mostly underground facility is a collection of one-story buildings, huge pits and walkways on a mound of dirt. To build the plant, construction crews excavated the mound to pour the forms and buried the completed chambers.

After passing a seven-day "wet test" with clean water, the plant began operating May 24. It will take a month for city employees to finish testing, work out the bugs and let the plant's biological activity stabilize.

"It went very smoothly," said Waste Water Utility Superintendent Miles Beach.

Beach said they have not experienced any unusual or severe problems and the plant is meeting discharge limits regarding cleanliness.

The old treatment plant had reached its capacity of 400,000 gallons a day and the quality of the effluent was declining. With a maximum capacity of two million gallons a day, the new plant can meet the city's growing needs easily for 20 to 30 years.

The new plant was funded by a $40 million line of credit from SeaFirst Bank. The city's finance director, Gordon Hey, said he is putting together a $10 million bond issue for September. The bonds, $5,000 each, will be paid off by revenues from the plant.

Residents will still absorb a rate increase that has yet to be determined, Hey said. The city has commissioned an engineering firm to study that issue.

"There will have to be an increase. We are installing $40 to $50 million worth of infrastructure," he said, referring to the city-wide sewer system being installed.

The new plant is more "mechanically intense," which means more maintenance. It will require four employees vs. two at the old plant. But the new plant is only eight acres. An old- style plant would have required 50 acres to do the same job. Less surface area also means the plant will not be as susceptible to heavy rains.

The new treatment plant runs on 95 to 100 horsepower, about 10 more than the original. But the more sewage the plant processes in the future, the more cost effective it will become. And when the city-wide sewer system is complete in October, there definitely will be more sewage.

The force main, which brings the sewage into the plant, ends at the old headworks chamber, the smelliest part of the plant. The old headworks directs the sewage to the new headworks 10 feet underground. There, solids are removed with bar screens. The headworks' long cement platform protrudes above ground. The top resembles a meat grinder where the solids - mostly shredded paper - emerge.

Oxidation pit

The effluent then flows into the oxidation pit, or "race track." Walkways over the pit provide a bird's-eye view of the dark effluent swirling and bubbling around the pit like smelly chocolate milk. The smell is actually better now than before, but not pleasant.

The 18-foot deep, three-acre track can process two million gallons a day, the same as nine surface acres of lagoons.

The effluent is then piped up three giant screw pumps to the two clarifiers that separate waste from the effluent. The twin silo-shaped chambers, sunken 20-feet deep, are 50 feet in diameter. The "sludge" is pumped out to one of the three one-acre lagoons left over from the old plant.

During the summer, the sludge will be "pressed" into cakes on a gizmo that is similar to a paper mill machine. The cakes are injected with polymers and put in a compost pile. After two months, the cakes will be available to the public as quality topsoil.

Virtually all the land at Ocean Shores is sand. Topsoil holds moisture better and helps residents irrigate less, said Beach.

The effluent from the clarifier flows into a channel where ultraviolet lights disinfect the water. The old process used chlorine. Beach said he is happy to see the chlorine go. Residents live right across from the plant.

The plant has never had a spill, but accidents can happen.

From the ultraviolet channel, a valve controls the outflow from the plant. Since the plant has greatly increased its capacity, operators can wait for outgoing tides to discharge.

The outflow "looks remarkably plain in a visual inspection, but I still wouldn't recommend drinking it," said City Engineer Paul Richart.

While the main plant is complete and working, the site itself is not yet finished.

Construction crews still have to build a rock retaining wall to protect the plant from overwash from the jetty. They also have to pave the roads and landscape the area.

IMCO Construction is scheduled to complete the plant by July 27.

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