text:
Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Session Overview
|Date: Monday, 09/Sep/2019
|9:45am - 12:00pm
|Session 01A: Leadership, Social Equity and Workforce Development: Workforce Development
Session Chair: Kristi Steiner, Clean Water Services;
9:45am - 10:30am
The Power of Mentorship: Equipping the Next Generation for Success
HDR, United States of America;
The workforce is on the cusp of a notable period of transition (if not already within it), which presents real challenges for the future. There is a noticeable generation gap in our industry, with senior technical and operational staff on the cusp of retirement, contrasting a younger generation entering the workplace, unsure of career paths and growth potential. How do we navigate this period of transition and close this knowledge and experience gap? How are we actively passing down the wisdom and expertise of the experienced staff to equip the younger generation to be successful? While this is a systemic challenge at its core, one of the ways that HDR has approached this challenge is through the power of mentorship. HDR has recently revamped its Washington State Mentoring Program to pivot towards a more structured program to empower staff towards deeper understanding of developing a career path, work-life-balance, networking, leadership, and technical development.
While casual mentorship is still important, a structured mentorship program has been a vehicle for connection between staff that has helped foster a sense of community, provided deliberate career development, and opened a channel for feedback between all levels of the organization. Some of the key takeaways from this revised approach to mentorship are that milestones and goal setting are important, that tools and resources to equip staff for intentional mentorship act as a catalyst for deeper conversation, and that arranging a specific timeline for mentorship creates a framework for regular celebration, evaluation, and engagement of our staff.
As a workforce, we are more diverse than we have ever been. We are more technologically advanced than we have ever been. What better time to improve the way we tap into our experiences and connect with each other through the power of mentoring?
10:30am - 11:15am
Mentoring – The Best Bridging Opportunity and it's Available to Anyone
1Akana, United States of America; 2Cleanwater Services; ,
Mentoring is a process of providing support, advice and feedback to people that are interested in improving their knowledge and understanding as well as are open to improving themselves. Mentoring can build trusting relationships that empower each individual to openly share varied perspectives so both people feel welcomed and valued. But in today's workplace, it seems like no one really wants to obtain honest input or feedback. What obstacles block employees from taking advantage of the mentors in the industry? This discussion will include a mentoring team that have spent the last year in developing a successful mentoring process. We will discuss what mentoring is, how it works and why it is important for everyone to be involved in a mentoring program, regardless of their age, gender or ethnicity.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Nampa Wastewater Treatment Plant Construction: Collaboration is Key to Success
Brown and Caldwell, United States of America; , ,
The City of Nampa's Wastewater Treatment Plant is completing the $38M Phase I Upgrades to meet interim phosphorus permit limits while also creating a baseline for the Phase II and III Upgrades to meet even lower phosphorus and temperature limits, respectively. Phase I was comprised of three project groups designed and constructed by different entities which created coordination challenges. The design and construction of these projects overlapped creating an increased needed for collaboration throughout project execution. This need was filled throughout project execution; the City chose to facilitate this collaboration through a program manager who was responsible for the coordination between planners, final designers, contractors, and operators.
Phase I construction required connections to several major process flow streams including primary effluent, aeration air, RAS, WAS, and plant drain. The shut downs required for these tie-ins began with collaboration between the City, designers, and contractors resulting in well thought out and sequenced plans allowing the City to maintain operations during major upgrades.
Although the start-up activities and successful commissioning processes were led by the contractors, the start-up plans were developed based on input from all parties. This allowed the City to bring on-line new facilities to increase treatment capacity as well as well as replace aging and failing existing facilities, all while achieving its Critical Success Factor of no permit violations during construction.
Several junior engineering staff were given the opportunity to assist with on-site observations under the Construction Manager as well as participate in equipment start-up and facility commissioning under a Commissioning Specialist. This increased their understanding of construction techniques, awareness of the importance of well-coordinated designs, and recognition of the collaboration required between all parties to implement a successful project. Early introduction to construction techniques and how operators run plants in practice will aid their ability to produce quality designs in the future.
Coordination between designers, contractors, and operators, facilitated by a program manager has proven successful at Nampa's Wastewater Treatment Plant. Maintaining a key contact responsible for coordination between entities onsite will be continued through future phases of construction following success in Phase I.
|9:45am - 12:00pm
|Session 02A: Wastewater 101: Preliminary Treatment
Session Chair: Jim Wodrich, HDR;
9:45am - 10:30am
Wastewater 101: System Curve Development and Pump Selection
Murraysmith, United States of America; ,
Design guidelines and best practices for developing pump station system curves and pump selection will be presented. This will include an overview of components making up total dynamic head and discussion on factors that can influence the results. In addition, best practices for pump selection of constant speed and variable speeds wastewater pumps will be presented along with case studies of various project examples and lessons learned.
Attendees will gain an understanding for the fundamental of system curve development, reviewing pump curves, applying affinity laws to variable speed pumps, and tip for pump selection.
10:30am - 11:15am
Screen Time: Considerations for Headworks Screening
BHC Consultants, United States of America;
As one of the first processes at any wastewater treatment plant, screening can be critical to the function and performance of many downstream processes. This presentation will focus on important considerations to ensure that the screening process is meeting the needs of the application, such as:
· Screenings volume and characteristics
· Physical constraints
· Hydraulics – Flows, velocity and upstream/downstream water levels
· Screening element – Capture, capacity, carryover, cleaning and blinding
· Staged screening, redundancy and overflows/bypasses
· Maintenance access – Isolation, drains, space/location
· Controls and integration
· Rocks and grit
· Environment – Area classification, odors and weather exposure
· Washer/compactors
· Screenings conveyance and storage/disposal
· Support systems – Water and power
Examples of actual installations and designs will be referenced throughout the presentation to demonstrate how these considerations are translated into real world applications.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Relative Performance of Grit Removal Systems
Hydro International;
Biological processes continue to evolve toward better effluent quality in a smaller footprint. The fact that these processes are many times housed in a small footprint means that they have an inherent inability to store grit and debris. This, in conjunction with the trend towards reductions in plant personnel, drives the need for advanced headworks processes that are more effective at removing grit and debris. Screening, for example, has trended toward progressively smaller openings with 1/4" screens commonly used. Improved grit removal system performance is critical to successful plant operations. Similar to screening, the trend here is to target smaller particles to increase the system overall removal efficiency.
Choosing a grit removal technology has often been based on equipment price with little regard for device efficacy and consequent grit removal efficiency. Owners and engineers are forced to navigate a field of what can be conflicting performance claims made by various equipment manufacturers. This situation is perpetuated by the fact that there is no widely accepted, peer reviewed test standard for grit sampling and analysis.
The purpose of this paper is to encapsulate various grit removal system performance data generated by a repeatable sampling and analysis methodology for the purpose of comparing virtually all grit removal technologies in terms of their effectiveness. A side-by-side comparison now offers decision makers the data needed to make an educated decision when selecting a grit removal technology.
|9:45am - 12:00pm
|Session 03A: Utility Management
Session Chair: Bhargavi Ambadkar, City of Portland BES;
9:45am - 10:30am
Benefits of Regionalizing Sewer And Surface Water: The WES Case Study
Water Environment Services, United States of America; ,
Local governments are increasingly working together towards common goals, such as financing major infrastructure projects and achieving economies of scale through consolidation. There can be many benefits to these kinds of arrangements, most notably costs savings and regulatory benefits. There may also be many hurdles to implementation, including navigating intergovernmental agreements, local politics, combining assets, merging accounting systems, and complying with outstanding legal and financial obligations. This session discusses local government collaboration and the potential benefits and challenges through a case study of the formation of Water Environment Services ("WES"). In 2018, Clackamas County Service District No. 1, Tri-City Service District, and Surface Water Management Agency of Clackamas County contributed all of their assets, borrowings and operations to WES with the intent that WES become the operating entity for each of the parties and adopt a regional service delivery model. Will provide a discussion of key benefits and lessons learned from regionalizing services, the regulatory asset portfolio, and increased intergovernmental cooperation.
10:30am - 11:15am
Building Bridges: Clean Water Services and Corvallis Partner to Optimize Operations
1Clean Water Services, Hillsboro, Oregon; 2Water Dude Solutions, Oregon; 3City of Corvallis, Corvallis, Oregon; ,
In the summer of 2018, the City of Corvallis (City), Oregon entered into a cooperative agreement with Clean Water Services (CWS), a water resources utility located in Washington County, Oregon, to conduct a comprehensive review of the operations of the City's wastewater treatment facility. CWS was brought in to provide technical assistance, information and training to help improve present and future operations, maintenance and management of the City's facility. The City was poised to employ a new wastewater treatment facility supervisor and the review was seen as a way to bring in an external perspective to examine operations and organizational structure, review regulatory compliance and permit issues, and provide needed training to City staff. This concept of two utilities partnering to review and optimize a treatment facility's operations is an approach that could be used throughout the industry to promote workforce development and to assist small utilities that often lack specialized expertise. CWS and City personnel reviewed the facility's discharge monitoring reports, present and future permit requirements, the organization chart and personnel skills, laboratory sampling and analyses, and potential changes in facility operations or infrastructure.
This presentation will provide an overview of how CWS and the City conducted the review of the facility and developed training for the City's staff, the challenges and lessons learned from this process, and how a partnership builds upon the strength of networks to address present and future issues and opportunities.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Building Bridges With Your Power Utility To Meet Shared Efficiency Goals
1Cascade Energy; 2Snohomish PUD; ,
Engineers from the Snohomish County Public Utility District No. 1 (SnoPUD) and the Bonneville Power Administration's Energy Smart Industrial (ESI) program recently collaborated to deliver a strategic energy management program known as Wastewater Efficiency Coaching (WEC) to a cohort of seven water resource recovery facilities in Snohomish County, WA. The program focused on teaching energy management techniques and principles to facility managers, operators, and other operations and maintenance (O&M) technical staff. The immediate goal of the program was to help staff learn to identify and implement low- and no-cost measures to reduce their energy consumption; the ultimate goal was to instill an energy-efficiency culture in each of the facilities to allow them to operate as sustainably and cost effectively as possible without negatively impacting safety or water quality. Through the program, participants developed energy teams and established energy polices, resulting in significant reductions in energy use at many of their facilities.
During a series of workshops and energy team meetings, participants were encouraged to provide updates on their progress, ask for help on specific issues, and interact with other water/wastewater professionals in a friendly and open environment. This type of interaction was commonly mentioned by participants as one of the highlights of the program.
This technical session will be presented by a panel composed of alumni of the program, energy engineers from SnoPUD, and strategic energy management practitioners from ESI to replicate the open environment of an energy team meeting. Panelists will discuss the program and describe both the difficulties and successes they experienced. Technical topics will range from wastewater-specific equipment upgrades and operational changes to energy model development and the measurement and verification (M&V) process to quantify energy savings. Organizational topics would include the development of an energy team, developing an energy-conscious culture, and effective communication strategies.
|9:45am - 12:00pm
|Session 04A: Collection, Pump Stations and Conveyance: Pump Stations
Session Chair: Eddie Speer, CDM Smith;
9:45am - 10:30am
Holistic Design Approach for Seattle Public Utility's Tunnel Effluent Pump Station
1HDR Engineering, United States of America; 2Seattle Public Utilities;
Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) will be constructing a 56 mgd pump station at the end of the 2.7-mile, 18-foot 10-inch-diameter combined sewage storage tunnel as part of the Ship Canal Water Quality Project. The Tunnel Effluent Pump Station (TEPS) will drain the tunnel after flows in the regional wastewater conveyance system have receded following a wet weather event. This project will reduce the frequency of CSO events to less than one CSO event per year at each of the tributary basin combined sewer outfalls, meeting the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and Washington State Department of Ecology consent decree requirements.
Rather than approaching the design of the pump station to first meet 1) HI standards and then adapt the design to consider 2) constructability, and finally 3) operations and maintenance (O&M), the design team took a holistic approach that considered all three factors simultaneously. This approach result in a wet well different than a standard HI configuration but a physical model study was used to establish conformity with HI standards.
Key design objectives included:
· A wet well/dry well style pump station,
· Features that facilitate removal of solids that cannot be pumped from the 100 foot deep wet well, and
· Minimize groundwater infiltration leakage into the drywell.
SPU is proceeding with a "donut" pump station concept that is a dry well shaft constructed within the center of a larger tunneling shaft. The annular space between the two shafts is the wet well. This concept evolved from meeting SPU's criteria and satisfying the constructability and O&M objectives, in addition to the HI standards. Key features of the design include an efficient structural configuration to resist 75 feet of wet well hydrostatic head, minimal coordination required between the tunneling contractor and the pump station contractor.
10:30am - 11:15am
Pump, Motor or Mounting as Source of Vibration
HDR, United States of America;
"Pump designs are being optimized to reduce weight and manufacturing costs, thus the new lightweight designs are more susceptible to vibration…" Finite element analysis (FEA) is a sophisticated tool to determine natural frequency and vibration issues of a pump prior to its manufacturing. This paper will review several installations where the cause of the vibration was the motor mounting.
Mounting of motors to pump discharge heads cannot be overlooked as a source of vibration. In a recent installation, the pump discharge head was not stiff enough. Additional stiffeners were added to the pump as determined by a FEA analysis. When reinstalled, the remanufactured discharge head did not meet the required 120% separation.
The source of the nonconforming vibration was blamed on the structure and wet well hydraulics. The manufacturer's claim was their sophisticated FEA analysis demonstrated the equipment had its natural frequency >120% above the operating speed.
After it was determined that the pumps were operating within HI Standards, the manufacturers decided to perform additional vibration analysis to determine the discrepancy between field measured natural frequency and FEA calculated values. The assumptions in the FEA calculations that the bolted connection of the pump and motor is a rigid connection, was found to be incorrect.
At another installation, the connection between the discharge head and motor were determined not to be rigid. The "fix" was to add bolted clamps to the head to secure the motor.
FEA is a powerful and sophisticated tool for manufactures to employ to confirm their equipment meets minimum criteria. Measuring the natural frequency of the entire assembly should be part of the owner's and engineers contract/purchasing documents. The ultimate test of whether equipment meets contract requirement is rigorous field testing by a Level III vibration analysis technician.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Pumping Up to 450 MGD Downhill: Lessons Learned
City of Portland, Environmental Services;
One alternative to increase the capacity of a conveyance system is addition of pumps and controls to intermittently use a gravity pipeline as a pressure conduit when system gravity conveyance capacity is inadequate. The author will present some of the problems encountered and solutions developed for the City of Portland BES Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant effluent conveyance system.
The CBWTP effluent conveyance system includes a 450 MGD peak capacity pump station, two pipelines that are each approximately 10,000 feet, and five gate structures. The system operates as a gravity conveyance during dry weather and when flows to the plant from CSO events are less than the gravity system conveyance capacity.
When CSO flows to the plant exceed system gravity capacity the effluent pump station is operated to pump flow to the Columbia River. The final project required to provide the full 450 MGD system capacity was completed in 2006.
When operated as a pumped system: pipeline failures, hydraulic structure damage, junction structure overflows, unstable pump controls, and other operational issues occurred.
Starting in 2013 BES Engineering and Operations and Maintenance staff collaborated to investigate changes to system operations and automation to reduce or eliminate operational problems.
Following analysis of the system and constraints it was determined that most of the system operational issues were caused by the pump system automated controls during and immediately after the transition from a gravity system to a pumped system.
A proposed control scheme was developed and tested prior to implementation of programming changes.
The programming changes were completed in 2017 and have successfully eliminated the majority of problems experienced with flow regime transition from gravity to pumped flow.
|9:45am - 12:00pm
|Session 05A: Resource Recovery: Gas and Energy
Session Chair: Dan Lafitte, Carollo;
9:45am - 10:30am
Revenue from Electric Vehicles Fueling with Combined Heat and Power: New Revenue Opportunities from Electricity Generation
There are a handful of Water Resource Recovery Facilities (WRRFs) fueling vehicles with RNG and consequently receiving revenue for RIN generation using the pathways, contractual mechanisms, and financial structure of RNG RINs. Realizing RINs for fueling electric vehicles (EVs), however, has not yet been activated by EPA. The streamlining of lithium ion battery technology, increasing number of remote EV charging stations, recent expansion of EV supply, and projected growth of EVs may support a large market demand and solid value proposition for WRRFs to supply electricity to EVs. California is establishing a pathway and credit accounting protocol for EV charging, and EPA may follow suit.
To understand the costs, benefits, and tradeoffs of the various biogas utilization options as they compare to EV charging versus CNG vehicle fueling, WRRFs should evaluate energy/mass balance calculations with parasitic loads, the net energy production, the environmental benefits, equipment efficacy, and equipment complexity. The objective is to cover biogas utilization technologies, the evaluation methodology, the economics, and the risks and uncertainties of the RINs and other associated factors.
When comparing CNG versus EV fueling, utilities should also examine the environmental and social pros and cons of the various uses of biogas. Although WRRFs generally consider point and non-point pollution within the context of watershed management, the same philosophy applies to stationary combustion (e.g., CHP) versus mobile combustion (e.g., CNG vehicles). Regulatory agencies can better govern emissions from stationary sources, however complying with emission rules can be onerous and costly. Also, there is an environmental justice consideration regarding whether the stationary source combustion can more heavily burden proximal communities' health and property value. This presentation will review a methodology for assessing EV charging versus CNG vehicle fueling and show examples of how this assessment can be conducted.
10:30am - 11:15am
City of Portland's Renewable Natural Gas Facility: From Waste to Renewable Vehicle Fuel
1HDR; 2City of Portland, Bureau of Environmental Services; 3City of Portland, Bureau of Planning and Sustainability; , ,
The City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services' (City) Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant (CBWTP) currently has a facility under construction to treat digester gas (biogas) to high quality renewable natural gas (RNG). The project was initiated in 2014 through a Sustainable Return on Investment (SROI), a triple bottom line evaluation process, that identified conversion to RNG vehicle fuel as the most beneficial use of the flared excess biogas. Over the past few years, updates to the project were made to maximize value to the rate payers, optimize the return on investment, and align with the City's Climate Action Plan. The RNG facility was designed to treat all biogas produced at CBWTP, approximately 1.6 million cubic feet per day.
The new RNG facility will use a proprietary water scrubbing technology (furnished by Greenlane Biogas) for the primary treatment to upgrade raw digester gas to RNG quality. In order to meet the local gas company (NW Natural) gas quality requirements, further gas polishing will be performed by a proprietary vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) system (also furnished by Greenlane Biogas). The RNG must also be compressed to a 420 psig to be injected into the NW Natural's distribution system. The City selected Clean Energy Renewable Fuels to manage the renewable attributes of the RNG, which will be sold as RNG vehicle fuel in Oregon and/or California to take advantage of the highest renewable attribute programs. The City also constructed an on-site compressed natural gas (CNG) facility that will utilize some of the RNG produced at the plant, after injection into the NW Natural's system, to fuel City vehicles.
This presentation will provide a summary overview of the project history, important aspects of the policies, marketing and sales of the RNG, equipment and design considerations, and early lessons learned on permits and construction (completion anticipated by the end of 2019).
11:15am - 12:00pm
Biogas Upgrading: RNG Options For Vehicle Fuel And Pipeline Injection
1Unison Solutions, Inc., United States of America; 2Beaver Equipment Co.;
As wastewater treatment plants become more efficient and paybacks for combined heat and power projects are becoming extended, the biogas industry has seen an increased interest in Biogas to Vehicle Fuel and Biogas to Pipeline Injection projects. Several new technologies are available for small scale and large scale pipeline projects
For small scale systems, dual stage membrane technology provides increased methane recovery at an affordable price. This technology produces a high BTU fuel that can be utilized for either vehicles or pipeline injection. Utilizing this fuel for vehicles can be done in a variety of ways. We'll discuss direct point of use with both timed and fast fill options, dedicated pipelines, and virtual pipelines. Injection into the natural gas pipeline may also be an option and we'll review the criteria to meet these requirements.
For larger scale systems, there is a chemical adsorption biogas upgrading process, new to the US market. It captures over 99.9% of the available biomethane in raw biogas, maximizing renewable gas yields and revenues with a very low operational cost. The pipeline quality renewable natural gas can be compressed for vehicle fuel, grid injection, virtual pipeline or liquefied for renewable LNG.
Whether it's a small scale direct use system or injection into the existing natural gas pipeline, renewable identification numbers (RIN's) and new renewable fuel standard regulations, make these projects more cost efficient than ever. We'll discuss these programs as well as case studies of current facilities that have been operating for several years.
|9:45am - 12:00pm
|Session 06A: Construction /Alternative Delivery
Session Chair: Michael Humm, Kennedy Jenks;
9:45am - 10:30am
A Panel Discussion Overcoming Design & Construction Gaps through Various Delivery Methods
1Trane Company; 2City of Lynnwood; 3Kitsap County; 4BHC Consultants; 5General Mechanical; , , , , ,
Attendees will gain real-world insight into how alternative delivery works, when to consider alternative delivery for upcoming projects, keys to make alternative delivery successful, and what to look for when building a project team.
A panel that includes the City of Lynnwood, Kitsap County, Trane, BHC Consultants, and General Mechanical will discuss how gaps between design and construction were identified and overcome for several recent projects and delivery methods. Everyone on the panel has experience with traditional and alternative delivery projects and will compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses with both approaches. The City of Lynnwood has recently completed projects via traditional design bid build, and design build at their wastewater treatment plant. Kitsap County has recently completed design bid build, GCCM, and Design Build projects. The discussion will start with panel members sharing their personal experiences with questions encouraged from the audience. A moderator will prompt the panel with questions as necessary.
Discussion topics may include:
10:30am - 11:15am
Maximizing ROI in Public Contracts with Progressive Design Build
1Kennedy Jenks Consultants, United States of America; 2Mortenson Construction, United States of America; ,
In 2015, the City of The Dalles (City) began a comprehensive upgrade to its wastewater treatment plant. Construction was completed in 2018 and included rehabilitation of the influent pump station with increased firm capacity of 13.2 MGD, new headworks, with multi-rake bar screens, and a new grit chamber and bypass channel. Solids improvements included a 254,000-gallon anaerobic digester with new flare and gas safety equipment. The project also included an innovative diversion of solids directly to the digester for gas production using Advanced Primary Treatment.
The City selected the Progressive Design-Build (PDB) delivery method for the project and chose the design-build team of Kennedy/Jenks and Mortenson Construction. The City collaborated closely with this team to achieve the project objectives and arrive at a guaranteed maximum price that fit the City's budget. The PDB delivery approach facilitated a collaborative exploration and development of project enhancements, which resulted in changes to the City's plans for upgrading the plant. As a result, the City was able to delay a costly secondary improvements project, and the team achieved the City's goals in a reduced time frame and at a total cost less than the planning level estimate. The success of the PDB process allowed future phases of work to be added to the project by amendment. However, this process wasn't without lessons learned for the owner, contractor and engineer. We will discuss the design process, contracting arrangements, procurement methods, interactions with regulatory agencies, construction administration, quality control, equipment startup and warranty implementation for the contract methodology that is PDB.
11:15am - 12:00pm
True Project Partners: Progressive Design Build Delivers on Highly Compressed Schedules
1Parametrix; 2TaylorNW; 3City of Prineville; ,
Over the past 8 years, several major new data centers have reshaped the economy of the small Central Oregon city of Prineville, adding high-paying jobs. However, they have also pushed existing water and sewer systems to near capacity. In late 2017, the City knew it had to provide 33,000 LF of additional water, sewer, brine, and reuse mains through steep rocky terrain, which included a 400-foot vertical drop – all before the next data center was completed in October 2018. A crucial portion of the project needed to cross an irrigation canal and adjacent ODOT highway prior to the start of the April 2018 irrigation season. A new potable water pump station also needed to be completed prior to the summer of 2019.
Realizing that delivering this project through a traditional design-bid-build method would prove impossible, the City selected a contractor-designer team for a progressive design-build delivery process. This decision created a true partnership between the owner, design, and construction teams.
To quickly develop the best solutions, the design and construction team began work immediately. To ensure on-time delivery, they:
This first-ever public-agency-led progressive design-build process in Central Oregon proved that with the right team and delivery method, a near-impossible task becomes possible. The results speak for themselves:
|9:45am - 12:00pm
|Session 07A: Operations and Maintenance: Collection Systems
Session Chair: Stephen Lusch, Roseburg Urban Sanitary Authority;
9:45am - 10:30am
Phased Assessment of Sanitary Sewers
1True North Equipment, United States of America; 2Envirosight, LLC; ,
Here you'll learn about a new workflow; one that will save your department money, help optimize resource utilization, and allow your inspection crews to focus their attention on the sewer assets that need it most.
Sewer inspection is critical to the wellbeing of our wastewater infrastructure, our communities and the environment. Benefits of a well-rounded inspection program include (EPA, April 2010):
These benefits are the goal of every sewer department, but given today's budgets, a new approach is needed—one that maintains the goal of comprehensive assessment, but which increases productivity and reduces costs.
While CCTV crawler inspection is an essential tool in any condition assessment program, many lines don't need the level of scrutiny a crawler offers. Rapid assessment tools like zoom cameras and video nozzles are ideal front-line tools for screening out such lines. If municipalities incorporate these tools into a three-phase approach to inspection, they can save significant time and money, and maintain more updated information about pipe condition.
If you are trying to meet increasing demands for infrastructure inspection with the same old workflows and technology, you're fighting a losing battle. The evolving challenges of sewer inspection require adapting new technologies and methodologies to gain greater efficiencies
and better data. Doing so can allow inspectors to prioritize system-wide which lines need the most attention, and to shorten the interval it takes to perform a complete system assessment.
10:30am - 11:15am
Utilizing Acoustic Inspection Technology to Prioritize Sewer Cleaning
InfoSense, Inc., United States of America;
Reducing sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) is an important function of maintenance programs - but effectively deploying daily resources to efficiently achieve that objective remains a tricky challenge for wastewater collection system managers. With the introduction of rapid acoustic inspection technology, an increasing number of utilities have started using transmissive acoustics as a preliminary screening tool to quickly determine blockage conditions in small diameter gravity sewer. The acoustic score for each segment ranges from 0 to 10 (0 – blocked, 10 – fully open pipe), and is typically used to help prioritize cleaning and CCTV inspection resources.
With acoustic inspection, utilities can cover 7,000 to 20,000 feet per day with a two-person crew. This method of assessment provides a powerful tool for wastewater collection system managers to quickly gain a low-cost/low-resolution view of blockage condition in their entire system. That being said, acoustics does not replace CCTV or cleaning, but rather prioritizes the deployment of these much more expensive resources towards the pipes that most need it. Results from over 120 million feet of acoustic inspection data show that 65-90% of pipes in most utilities are free of blockage defect. Therefore, rapid acoustic assessment has been a helpful tool in helping utilities to stop cleaning clean pipe and transition to a condition-based maintenance program.
This presentation will utilize case studies to discuss how various utilities have incorporated acoustic technology to improve resource deployment and enhance sewer maintenance operations. The implementation process, resulting cost savings and overall benefits of acoustic technology will be highlighted. Furthermore, limitations of the technology will be reviewed to provide a comprehensive discussion. This presentation will be focused on discussing practical application based on operator training courses performed around the country and will summarize a recently published ASTM Standard developed for acoustic pipe inspection.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Collection System Real-Time Monitoring and Failure Detection
Seattle Public Utilities, City of Seattle; ,
Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) owns and operates a collection system that includes 1,420 miles of pipe, 67 wastewater pump stations, 42 combined sewer overflow (CSO) facilities, and 86 CSO outfalls. At any time, system components can fail thereby increasing the risk or cause an overflow to a waterbody, building, street, or other locations. System failures can occur acutely or evolve slowly. Since collection systems typically lack distibuted monitoring equipment, early detection to minimize the impacts of failures can be challenging. One part of SPU's strategy to detect system failures is to employ real-time monitoring and data trend analysis of equipment operation and flow conditions at facilities and critical areas of the collection system.
Managing a system of real-time flow monitors poses another set of challenges. SCADA sensors, rain gauges, and flow and level monitors are installed in remote locations. Monitoring equipment is often subject to turbulent flow conditions, poor accessibility, or damage from mainline jetting or other maintenance activities. These challenges have led SPU to adopt additional practices to maintain the integrity of the data collection and management system.
This presentation will describe types of flow monitoring used in the collection system, challenges met and practices required to manage an effective monitoring system, and the types of failure that can be detected through data trends of equipment operation and flow conditions. Examples include the early detection of pump and valve clogging, force main breaks, capacity loss in conveyance pipes from root intrusion or sedimentation, and saltwater intrusion. In addition to detecting system failures, real-time flow information has provided the ability to identify opportunities to optimize collection system facilities by changing set points, valve positions, and pumping rates.
|9:45am - 12:00pm
|Session 08A: Stormwater: Planning
Session Chair: Leila Barker, Clean Water Services;
9:45am - 10:30am
One Water: A Bridge Between Water Supply Sources
Kennedy Jenks, United States of America;
Recently, California has been focused on building bridges between water supply and non-traditional sources to create One Water supply portfolios. Stormwater is a new water resource for many water agencies that requires building bridges with local agencies. This presentation will highlight two examples in California with different approaches to capturing stormwater within an urban landscape to supplement recycled water and build a more reliable water portfolio.
The Scotts Valley Water District in Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz County is an agency reliant solely on groundwater for potable water supply. With increased urbanization in the 1990's, the Santa Margarita groundwater basin became overdrafted. Kennedy Jenks prepared a potable reuse study for groundwater recharge to evaluate water supply and environmental benefits, then designed a parking lot retrofit to facilitate capture, treatment, and recharge of stormwater using biofiltration cells integrated into the landscape, pervious concrete pavement, and a detention/infiltration tank with a water level sensor.
The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District in Calabasas, Los Angeles County relies on imported surface water for potable water and treats and delivers recycled water for irrigation. Kennedy Jenks evaluated stormwater as a source to supplement available wastewater for a proposed advanced water purification facility (AWPF) to augment potable drinking water supply. A range of stormwater projects were screened to identify opportunities for stormwater capture and conveyance by the existing sewer system to the AWPF. Local projects proposed by other agencies to comply with total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) appear to be promising. If enlarged to maximize capture for reuse, these projects would serve multiple benefits by offsetting imported water, improving water quality, and contributing to TMDL goals.
In both projects, bridges had to be built between multiple local agencies and multiple water sources to contribute to achieving the goal of resilient One Water portfolios.
10:30am - 11:15am
Can District-Scale Green Infrastructure In Detroit, Michigan Improve Community Livability And Catalyze Redevelopment?
1Juncus Studio, Portland Oregon; 2The Nature Conservancy, Michigan Chapter, Detroit MI; ,
The Nature Conservancy, along with the City of Detroit and Eastern Market Corporation, led the Eastern Market Framework Plan project which established a vision to take the individual, disperse stormwater facilities typically required throughout a new 250-acre industrial development and aggregate them to create a working landscape that is greater than the sum of its parts.
The recently completed Eastern Market Framework Plan establishes a vision for the future development of a 250-acre site adjacent to the historic Eastern Market. This future "Food Innovation Zone" will be a high-tech center of food production, processing, and distribution and will integrate light industrial buildings within the fabric of an existing neighborhood.
At the heart of the Framework Plan is the vision of a network of centralized, hydraulically connected, neighborhood- scale, green stormwater facilities and greenways, which will convey and manage runoff from a significant portion of the new industrial development and surrounding neighborhood. The concept of a centralized management system is fundamentally to sustainably manage stormwater through green infrastructure solutions, but also to explore three key objectives:
The Framework Plan has expertly woven the green infrastructure facilities into the existing fabric of the neighborhood and provide connectivity throughout the district by creating an innovative and inspired sense of place that will be an economic catalyst for surrounding properties.
This presentation will discuss the variety of possible implementation, ownership, and maintenance strategies for the innovative green infrastructure network established by The Nature Conservancy, assisted by Juncus Studio, within the Eastern Market Framework Plan.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Bridging the Gap Between Planning and Performance: Stormwater Management
1Murraysmith, United States of America; 2Emery & Sons Construction Group; , ,
The environmentally conscious phenomenon, green streets, can challenge many tried-and-true design and construction methods – especially when a formal communication process typical of design-bid-build contracts become tested during construction. Many utilities are implementing green streets into their stormwater management requirements, compelled by National Environmental Policy changes.
Attend this presentation to learn how the City of Lake Oswego, the design team, and the contractor employed an "all hands on deck" approach to apply a new Stormwater Management Manual for the first time. The D Avenue Improvement project is a landmark venture for the City, and involves a residential street plagued with abnormally high volume and high-speed traffic, dilapidated pavement, and localized flooding – not to mention adjacent stormwater systems failing to compensate for D Avenue's lack of a continuous conveyance systems. The design team was further challenged with the neighborhood's unique character, forcing a delicate balance between stormwater, pedestrian, and pavement objectives using a curbless design. The solution: traffic calming through extensive landscaping, over 40 Low Impact Development stormwater management facilities, and a meandering alignment over 10 blocks.
Learn how this three-pronged team of owner, designer, and contractor were able to minimize schedule delays and rework. Unforeseen utility conflicts were resolved in a timely manner and with ease due to the dynamic duo of a flexible contractor and a responsive design team. Streamlined communication methods were essential to understand disciplinary goals relative to the more complex stormwater system.
|1:15pm - 2:00pm
|Demo: Demonstration—Collections Manhole Rehabilitation
Session Chair: Chris Larson, C&L Water Solutions;
Live demonstration on collection systems rehabilitation.
|123 NE 3rd Ave Offsite Manhole Rehab location
Geopolymer Manhole Rehabilitation Demonstration
1C&L Water Solutions; 2Murraysmith;
An actual manhole within a 5-minute walk of the Convention Center has been selected for rehabilitation using geopolymer, a newer product that offers structural renewal as well as resistance to corrosive environments. This material is being used for both pipe and structure renewal in wastewater and stormwater applications and offers the benefits of providing long-term rehabilitation in difficult-to-access structures or challenging pipe diameters and geometries.
Attendees will learn about benefits of geopolymer as well as witness firsthand the equipment, the laydown area, the traffic control requirements, bypass pumping, preparation, and labor required to perform the construction. The geopolymer manhole rehabilitation demonstration will be performed by C&L Water Solutions, Inc.
(This presentation-demo has a 5 minute walk time to get to the location. The actual CEU eleibile time is 30 minutes.) Location: 123 NE 3rd Ave Offsite Manhole Rehab location
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 01B: Leadership, Social Equity and Workforce Development: Leadership
Session Chair: Amy Dammarell, HDR;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Teambuilding - The Five P's of Leadership
Akana, United States of America;
Leaders come in all shapes and sizes, but managers aren't necessarily leaders and leaders aren't necessarily managers. We will look at how effective leaders solve problems - looking at the 5 p's of Problem solving: Problem - Person - People - Process and Purpose. Too often we spend far too much time on what we think is the appropriate focal point when in reality, we are missing the real issue and consequently failing to solve our problems. Today you will discover where you should be placing your time, focus and attention to not only better solve problems but understand the responsibilities and roles that need to be addressed.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Be, Know, Do – Applying Leadership Lessons from the Army to My Career in the Water Industry
Brown and Caldwell, United States of America;
Comparisons between leadership in the military and many civilian careers are difficult to make due to fundamental differences in goals and risks. However, there are some transferrable lessons of leadership learned in the Army that are universally applicable in the water industry. This paper will introduce the Army leadership principles of "Be, Know, Do" and share specific experiences of leading soldiers and how those experiences influence leadership practices in civilian life.
Be – character describes what a leader must be, their values, and attributes. Army officers must lead from the front. Deprivation is the soldier's way, and Army leaders always give more and take less. Army leaders eat last, which isn't the model of many civilian organizations. Compensation for leadership in many private companies is grossly disproportionate to the those being led, and loyalty to individuals is often rewarded more than loyalty to the mission. Consider the force multiplier of leaders who influence people to accomplish business objectives with their character and not their status, titles, or position.
Know – competence refers to what leaders must know. Soldiers become competent leaders through training and practice. In many organizations, leadership is a guarded privileged and assumed to be an innate trait possessed by few. While it is true, some have a propensity to leading others that is also true of marksmanship. Leadership is a skill that can and must be taught to sustain an organization.
Do – action is what leaders must do. In most organizations, leadership requires both mental and physical presence. In today's workplace with internet and cellular connectivity, more people can work remotely. The US Army is a very large and layered organization, but mission success is almost always accomplished by the actions of the lowest echelons. Leaders inspire and influence by being with their troops at every stage of the mission. Consider how goals in the business world could be accomplished if the bosses spent more in-person time with their teams.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 02B: Wastewater 101: Odor and HVAC
Session Chair: Ray Nickel, Parametrix;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Bridging the Gap Between HVAC and Wastewater Treatment Plant Design
Jacobs, United States of America;
The evolution of the wastewater treatment plant has come with the need for more complex HVAC systems to help maintain safe working conditions, protect the plant's assets, support odor control systems and provide a comfortable and healthy working environment. Specifically, a well-designed HVAC system can minimize explosion and fire hazards, extend the service life of equipment by preventing outdoor contaminants such as dirt, dust, corrosive gases and other debris from entering buildings, provide the required make-up air for odor control systems and provide a favorable environment for operators using energy efficient HVAC technologies. Additionally, today's wastewater treatment plants are viewed as valuable renewable resources and a well-design HVAC system is the key to recovering many of those resources such as waste heat from electrical rooms and biogas from anaerobic digestion. However, integrating a well-designed HVAC system into today's wastewater treatment plants can be challenging. First, firms that design wastewater treatment plants may not have the capacity to take on the HVAC scope and will typically subcontract the work to an MEP firm that may lack experience designing for the harsh and corrosive conditions typically present at a wastewater treatment plant. Second, most codes and standards that provide guidance for HVAC design focus on commercial buildings and don't specifically address wastewater treatment plants. The design professional is often forced into making inferences on how the code or standard applies to a wastewater treatment plant. Finally, open your most trusted wastewater treatment reference book and you will likely find minimal (if any) information on the design of HVAC systems. For all these reasons, an opportunity exists for the both the HVAC design professional and the wastewater engineer to bridge the gap between these two exciting fields.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Odor Control Performance Comparison Between Composting Technologies
Jacobs, United States of America;
Historically, one of the major impediments to successful biosolids composting facilities has been the lack of understanding and properly designing and operating facilities to prevent offsite odor problems. This one issue has resulted in the closure of dozens of composting facilities that were otherwise successful. In the past decade, great strides have been made in the design of compost systems that can successfully contain and treat composting odors such that offsite odor problems are eliminated and facilities can be good neighbors.
Two popular composting technologies, the membrane covered aerated static pile process and the conventional aerated static pile process with biofiltration continue to be developed, each with a good measure of odor control. Both technologies provide superior odor control when compared to conventional windrow operations. These two technologies were evaluated in a composting facility study to determine how the odor control performance compared for a 42,000 ton per year capacity composting operation. Compost process emissions concentrations and flows from the proposed facilities were used to determine overall emissions estimates and to perform odor dispersion models. Graphic representation of the odor control performance of these operations could then be compared.
This presentation will summarize the comparison of the two technical approaches in terms of overall process flow, emissions assumptions and resultant odor emissions produced. Emissions information for windrow processing will also be presented as a comparison. This information will be useful for planners, administrators, engineers and operators who are considering the development of composting operations.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 03B: Utility Management
Session Chair: Eric Habermeyer, City of Seattle;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Modernizing Workflows
1Clark Regional Wastewater District, United States of America; 2Flo-Analytics; 3Jacobs; , ,
Track: Utility Management Financing strategy; tools to optimize utility operations; regional collaboration; emergency plan; capital programs; contracting methods; public communication strategies. How are you building a competent and efficient organization? Asset Management & Data Where is the industry going with BIM/GIS? What tools do other industries use? How are you using your data? CMMS, IT, SCADA, predictive maintenance?
Clark Regional Wastewater District is located in southwest Washington State and manages a wastewater collection and conveyance system that serves over 100,000 people. The District has been providing wastewater collection services for 60 years to the unincorporated urban areas of Clark County, which is situated immediately north of the city of Vancouver.
The District has made several investments in key technology including a robust maintenance management system, GIS system with a complete inventory of the District assets, computer server and related investments, and mobile devices. Those investments have positioned the District to further leverage technology and modernize key processes. In 2015 the District completed an Engineering Department Workflow Assessment to document and review key processes and work flows. This process identified specific opportunities for both process improvements and for investment in new technologies that demonstrate a clear return on investment. The assessment identified potential cost savings to the District over a period of five years of over $450,000.
This presentation will cover important factors such as planning and obtaining buy in, demonstrate an innovative and integrated deployment of electronic tools and GIS to improve inspection and project management workflows and resource deployment, and discuss the result in terms of cost savings and quality control. It will also describe further improvements planned at the District including dashboards with key performance indicators for reporting.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Implementing Tools and Processes with Change Management Models That Work
Brown and Caldwell, United States of America;
When utilities embrace a culture of continuous improvement, they are faced with regularly updating business processes and tools to deliver increasingly efficient operations and accurate data. The process of implementing new tools and protocols can be extremely challenging due to our natural resistance to change. Exactly how challenging includes some shocking statistics. A variety of credible entities, including Harvard Business Review, Kotter Inc., International Project Leadership Academy, KPMG, and others have published similar numbers. Every year between 50% and 70% of change-focused project implementations fail. Despite all the advancements in project management tools and communication tools, organizations still struggle to implement change.
Thankfully, change management models have been developed that deliver expedited acceptance of change and minimize resistance. Using case studies from throughout the Pacific Northwest, key components of change management, and leading change management models are summarized to give utility leaders and communicators cutting-edge tips and techniques to accelerate the transition process. Real world examples of how these tools are implemented demonstrates their ability to be scaled and provide value to change implementations of any size or complexity.
Presentation attendees will receive an overview of various change management models that utilities use to implement change. Links to resources for templates, white papers, and case studies will also be provided.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 04B: Collection, Pump Stations and Conveyance: Pump Stations
Session Chair: Jason Morse, Whitney Equipment;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
To Pump or Not To Pump: How Dynamic Models Help Facilitate Quality Design Decisions
1Jacobs, United States of America; 2City of Portland; ,
The City of Portland is increasing secondary process capacity at the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant (CBWTP) to optimize biological wet weather treatment capacity and increase operational resiliency. The expansion includes two new secondary clarifiers, which the City is committed to provide with predictable hydraulic performance and at a minimized cost. The challenge is to identify the best way to integrate the new clarifiers into the existing plant hydraulic profile and facilities.
Five alternatives were developed in collaboration with the City, including gravity flow options and options which add a new intermediate pump station. This presentation will demonstrate how dynamic simulation was used during the conceptual design phase to develop and compare the alternatives and select the alternative that best meets the design hydraulic capacity, minimizes life cycle cost, and achieves system control objectives. Specific analyses performed included:
The presentation will illustrate how this project and dynamic hydraulic modeling helped facilitate the decision-making process by:
2:00pm - 2:45pm
A Triple Bottom Line Approach to Maximizing District Assets - Lift Station 23
1Murraysmith; 2Alderwood Water & Wastewater District;
The District implemented a program to redirect flows within their collection system to take maximum advantage of their existing wastewater treatment plant asset. As part of this program, a new lift station and force main was needed to intercept gravity flow and pump to an adjacent drainage basin. Three primary characteristics guided the development of this project:
First, the District/Consultant team needed to answer the weighted question, where can the greatest amount of flow be collected for the lowest impact? The team used a triple bottom line analysis to evaluate possible sites, and ultimately chose a location that aligned with District, operational, and community goals.
Critical to any wastewater pumping project, the team performed a downstream analysis to understand capacity and condition improvements necessary to accommodate the pumped flows. The District carried the triple bottom line mindset to this stage of the project as well - emphasizing not only capacity, but the service life of the existing infrastructure.
Operation and Maintenance (O&M) staff were actively engaged throughout the design process, most directly through several interactive workshops. The station configuration was selected largely by the O&M staff after reviewing alternatives and taking them on a tour of several wastewater pump stations in the local area. Ultimately, this project was defined as a 2.8 million gallon per day, wet pit/dry pit lift station with a 1,100-foot long force main.
Attend this presentation to gain insight into the triple bottom line approach used. Learn tips and tricks to actively engage O&M staff in the design process, which is the key to any successful project.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 05B: Resource Recovery: Gas and Energy
Session Chair: Anthony Tartaglione, Black and Veatch;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Lowering Co-Digestion Costs Through an Innovative Combination of Novel Food Waste Pre-processing Technique and Strategies for Improving Solids Treatment
Kennedy Jenks Consultants, United States of America;
Over the years, water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) have been exploring opportunities to enhance digester gas production through addition of high strength organic wastes from food processing and other facilities. Several major challenges exist for implementing co-digestion in WRRFs including the cost of food waste (FW) pre-processing, digester stability and capacity, undesirable consequences to digester operations, downstream impacts to biosolids generation and treatment as well as the lack of operational experience. To assist WRRFs in this pursuit, two complimentary approaches were implemented in this 3-year long project performed at Silicon Valley Clean Water (SVCW), Redwood City, CA: (i) a novel pre-processing technology which selectively extracts FW from waste materials based on its viscosity rather than the more commonly used size based screening methods, and (ii) full-scale co-digestion strategies to lower the mass of dewatered cake solids requiring disposal. The strategic addition of sludge, Fats, Oil and Grease (FOG) as well as FW is intended to facilitate better "sludge-organic waste" interactions that can enhance dewatering characteristics and reduce mass of dewatered cake solids generated. This, in turn, can lower the net mass of sludge cake requiring disposal and the corresponding hauling fees, demonstrating additional benefit over the enhanced gas production. The ultimate goal of this study is to identify ways to improve co-digestion so that more utilities can implement this process. Results pertaining (but not limited to) the above-mentioned aspects of FOG and FW co-digestion, namely, preprocessing, gas production, dewatering characteristics etc. will be presented in the talk.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Effects of Step-Wise Acclimation versus Shock Loading on the Performance of Anaerobic Co-Digestion of Fats, Oils, and Greases for Increased Methane Production
Oregon State University, United States of America;
Anaerobic co-digestion has become a popular option to increase biogas production, thus increasing resource recovery potential. Grease trap waste, or FOG (fats, oils, and greases), is the co-substrate that has shown the highest methane production potential. However, process optimization to maximize biogas production rates is lacking, partially due to a lack of knowledge on the influence of different FOG loading regimes on co-digestion processes. To address this knowledge gap, lab-scale anaerobic digesters were operated under either a stepwise (i.e. gradual increases in FOG loadings) or shock loading (i.e. rapid increases in FOG loadings) regime. Process performance parameters (e.g. biogas yields and solids reduction) and stability parameters (e.g. pH, nutrients and volatile fatty acid profiles) were monitored throughout the experiments.
The step-wise loading study showed that an increase in OLR and subsequent decrease in HRT resulted in a linear increase in methane yield up to a point, after which the methane yield decreased significantly. The observed increase in methane yield suggests that the microbial community was able to acclimate to an increased organic load. The observed decrease in the last phase of the experiment is likely due to washout. Alternatively, the shock loading study showed that subsequent shocks of a moderate size (e.g. OLR values of 2.21-3.44 g VS/L/d) did not increase methane yield, but did increase reactor stability by causing a lesser accumulation of organic acids during shock periods. These results also suggest that a failure-inducing shock (e.g. an OLR of 10.71 g VS/L/d) will cause reactor upset and failure, such as a decrease in biogas methane content and VS reduction efficiency, as well as increased organic acid accumulation. However, when allowed to recover, the reactor methane yields observed were greater than those pre-failure. Yet, when these failure-inducing shocks are repeated, the data suggests that a decrease in methane yield will occur over time.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 06B: Construction /Alternative Delivery
Session Chair: Dick Talley, Stantec Consulting Services, Inc;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Challenging Sewer Bypass of the 96-Inch Diameter Eastside Interceptor
1Carollo Engineers; 2King County Wastewater Treatment Division; ,
King County Wastewater Treatment Division needs to rehabilitate approximately 3,900 feet of severely corroded 96-inch diameter reinforced concrete pipe located in Renton, WA. The existing pipe, constructed in 1964, is a portion of the Eastside Interceptor installed in an urban area between Boeing's 737 commercial airline facility and the Renton Landing development.
King County completed an alternatives analysis and selected Linabond as the preferred rehabilitation technology in order to maintain existing capacity. The rehabilitation process requires workers to be in the pipe to prepare and apply the Linabond coating. This is accomplished from work platforms constructed in the pipe with live flow conveyed under the platform.
During design of the project, Carollo completed a Flow Bypass Study to analyze existing flows in the interceptor and to develop a plan to bypass up to 45 mgd during low-flow summer months to allow for the rehabilitation of the existing sewer. Historical data showed that flows remain under 45 mgd 98% of the time. The bypass plan included provisions in the design that allowed for working under live flow conditions while providing the capability to remove all essential personnel and equipment from within the pipe during emergency high flow conditions should flows exceed 45 mgd. The bypass plan also included the preparation of a flow management plan that included coordination efforts of three wastewater treatment plants and two offsite operations groups, in addition to the project team to manage flows entering the project area.
This presentation will look at the risk management aspects addressed in preparing the bypass sewer plan, including construction footprint constraints, operational agreements, traffic impacts, and community mitigation measures for both noise and odor during construction. Attendees will also learn what measures were taken to allow for the bypass system to be removed and reinstalled during emergency high-flow situations.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Panel Discussion: Improved Project Delivery– A Construction Perspective
1Jacobs, United States of America; 2Slayden; 3Mortenson; 4McClure and Sons; 5James W Fowler; , , , ,
A panel of active, local contactors with over a century of combined experience in wastewater construction will share insight and experience from their careers. The panel will discuss consistent interdisciplinary design gaps and lessons learned in engineering designs that need to be corrected in construction, with suggestions on how to improve these gaps for fewer change orders and improved quality. They will also discuss best-for-project contract terms and the changing construction market forces driving construction today, from equipment, materials, concrete specifications, and labor. Finally, the panel will answer questions on how to improve project delivery.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 07B: Operations and Maintenance: Collection Systems
Session Chair: Samantha Schreiner, WSC Inc.;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Prescriptive Cleaning May be a Bitter Pill to Swallow but Some Municipalities are Finding a New Tech-Cure
ADS Environmental Services, United States of America;
Decade's old prescription for maintenance1 is to aggressively clean. Grounded in sound logic, cleaning keeps sanitary sewers free of obstructions including FOG, roots, debris, and sediment which reduce capacity and create blockages.
Aggressive cleaning is effective for reducing SSOs2 but it is costly being labor intensive, requiring expensive vehicles and tools. Cleaning creates conflicting demands on finite maintenance resources, consequently, personnel and support infrastructure is strained.
Conventional cleaning practices are schedule-driven where frequency is based on historical occurrences. The consequence is over-cleaning, a wasteful consumption maintenance resources. It also promotes pre-mature pipe degradation due to high pressure sprays produces pipe wear leading to reduced asset life3. Safety is at issue with personnel sometimes required to work in high traffic locations.
Unquestionably, cleaning is an essential element of collection system operations and maintenance programs. Yet, the question arises, is there a way to reduce operations costs, slow asset degradation and lower safety risks while preserving or even lowering threats of SSOs?
The Cities of Renton, WA and La Mesa, CA independently asked this question looking a possible solution using monitoring technology. They postulated that real-time monitoring would provide continuous feedback at each remote site and they would clean as the monitors indicated to reduce cleaning frequency and acquire assurance against SSO
Pilot studies were implemented with advanced depth monitors at high frequency cleaning sites. Machine-to-machine cellular communications and software analytics and software tools were set-up to provide indications when to clean.
Renton's four-month and La Mesa's six-month pilots showed cleaning reductions of 94% and 80%, respectively. Pilot design, test data, costs and results will be detailed with hydrographs and data tables to illustrate findings.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
DIY Injection Grouting For Municipal Manholes
City of Sweet Home, United States of America;
Innovation is required to bridge the gap between crumbling infrastructure and the maintenance teams that keep it functioning. The City of Sweet Home, Oregon has a history of high I&I. After four very successful collection system rehabilitation projects reduced peak flows from 22MGD to 12MGD, City crews have now identified leaky manholes as one of the major sources of remaining I&I. The City needed a cost effective way to stop the leaks found in real time that would not involve a large capital outlay. Manhole rehabilitation solutions are expensive and usually involve hiring contractors with specialty equipment to repair manholes in batches. Purchasing a grout injector was also expensive and the equipment would be oversized for the City's needs. There was a gap between the solution that was needed and the solutions that were available.
Maintenance staff got creative and converted a retired airless paint machine into a high pressure injection grouting machine, thereby producing a medium-scale, self-contained system for repairing leaks immediately upon discovery. The City found its bridge and has now launched an effective manhole stop-leak program at a fraction of the cost of contracting out. Staff will present how the machine was built, totally in house, with only a few new fittings. Staff will also discuss a few application techniques learned, our success with different grout types, and some of the best practices we learned along the way.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 08B: Stormwater: Modeling
Session Chair: Richard Boyle, Clean Water Services;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
The Right GSI in the Right Place - Leveraging Technology For Basin Scale GSI Implementation
1Jacobs, United States of America; 2Herrera Environmental Consultants, United States of America; ,
The King County Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) is currently planning implementation of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) retrofits to help reduce combined sewer overflows (CSOs). To support this effort, innovative tools were developed to allow decision makers to evaluate a wide range of GSI solutions within the right-of-way in the University CSO Basin.
The ArcGIS Collector was developed to efficiently populate a database of potential sites with factors that affect feasibility such as infiltration, area delineation, available planter width, trees, utilities, road slope, etc. The database was initially populated using available GIS databases, supplemented in the field using tablets, then formatted as an input to the GSI Cost-Performance Model.
The GSI Cost-Performance model allows comparison of various GSI retrofit options given variability and uncertainty in site conditions and infiltration potential. Based on block-scale user inputs, the Excel-based model assesses feasibility, CSO reduction performance, and cost for each option. It includes various combinations of treatment (multiple bioretention geometries and proprietary technologies) with a range of infiltration approaches (to shallow soil and to deeper soil horizons using pit drains, drilled drains and deep wells). In the University GSI project, this tool was leveraged to evaluate BMPs on over 1,100 potential sites to develop a basin wide database of GSI opportunities.
The BMP Modeler provides a user interface to the data produced by the CPT to guide alternatives development and evaluation. The ArcGIS based webmap utilizes Multi Objective Decision Analysis (MODA) calculations to answer two programmatic questions; "which BMPs should be installed on which block?", and "which blocks should be constructed for effective CSO volume removal?". The University GSI project used this tool to explore various scenarios for prioritizing and optimizing cost, risk, and co-benefits with a defensible and replicable methodology that can be applied on future projects.
This presentation will include a description of each tool and the resulting programmatic siting and design guidance.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Water You Waiting For: Using 1D/2D Modeling to Address Nuisance Urban Flooding
Brown and Caldwell, United States of America;
Localized urban nuisance flooding is often not well understood, and the cause or contributing factors can be challenging to determine with traditional information and modeling methods. Understanding the timing, extent, depth, and velocity of flood events are all important characteristics to account for when planning for flooding, assessing and designing system improvements, and determining the root cause of the flooding and the nature of rainfall events that result in flooding. One-dimensional (1D) models fail to provide a comprehensive assessment of flood event characteristics, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood mapping is often inaccurate, regionally focused, and with poor resolution resulting in difficulty capturing localized flooding areas. When attempting to understand street-scale areas that are flood prone, a more comprehensive and locally focused flood model is needed.
Two recent studies for communities in the Portland Metro area by Brown and Caldwell employed one-dimensional/two-dimensional (1D/2D) models and have been able to bridge the gap of information and provide a clear picture of localized nuisance flooding on smaller, urban systems. These studies have provided information to identify the source of flooding, the extent of flooding for nuisance rain events and potential solutions. This information was previously not available to the municipality attempting to address the flood events. Utilizing modern modeling techniques have allowed Brown and Caldwell to provide clients with the necessary hydraulic details and visual aids to reflect the depth and velocity of flooding and surcharge, allowing informed decisions to be made to manage the stormwater collection and conveyance system.
|3:00pm - 5:15pm
|Session 01C: Leadership, Social Equity and Workforce Development: Leadership
Session Chair: Amy Dammarell, HDR;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Bridging The Gap For Women Between Entry Level & Leadership
1Murraysmith; 2Clark Regional Wastewater District; 3CLZ Consulting, PC; , ,
As a generation of leaders gets ready to retire and awareness of the benefit of diverse perspectives increases, the demand for female leaders in the engineering workforce has become a greater focus than ever before.
With a 54% increase in bachelor's degrees earned by women in engineering and computer science from 2011 to 2016, the challenge shifts from promoting engineering as a potential career choice for young women, to retaining mid-level female engineers in the workforce where only 13% of engineers are women (SWE Research, as of 2016).
What can women do to prepare themselves early in their career to propel toward, and ultimately excel in leadership roles? What are the holistic experiences of female engineers who hold mid-level and senior-level leadership positions, and what are the challenges faced at these two different stages of their careers?
This presentation will discuss the personal experiences and challenges faced by women pursuing leadership roles at different stages throughout their careers and the steps that can be taken to foster an environment in which women feel empowered and able to take on leadership roles within their companies. The presenters are women at various levels in their journeys (a young professional just getting started, a mid-level engineer, and a seasoned veteran) who will provide a diverse perspective that will be enlightening for audiences of all ages and genders.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Panel Discussion: Leadership Perspectives for the Future Workforce
1Carollo; 2HDR; 3Superior Engineering—WEF; 4Portland BES; 5Seattle Public Utilities; 6Clean Water Services; 7City of Edmonds; 8Parametrix; , , , , , , ,
A diverse panel of active, local leaders with vast combined experience in water issues will share insight and experience from their careers. The panel will discuss the leadership successes and challenges associated with a diverse workforce. Finally, the panel will answer questions on their vision for future leadership based on tomorrow's workforce, diversity and technology.
|3:00pm - 5:15pm
|Session 02C: Wastewater 101: Secondary Treatment and Disinfection
Session Chair: Ray Nickel, Parametrix;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
You Sure You Want A Turbo?
Aerzen USA, United States of America;
High speed turbo (HST) technology was the most quickly adopted blower design into the US wastewater market. Touted as "30% more efficient than Roots-type blowers", it was quickly received into a market searching for energy savings. While the efficiency is undeniably high, in many cases, the technology was applied without considering its suitability in the system. As a new technology, there was still a lot to learn, and many mistakes were made by engineers and manufacturers during its early implementation.
In the years that followed, the wastewater community became cautious of the technology, based on the difficulties which occasionally resulted in completely failed installations. Some HST manufacturers gave up on the technology, raising further doubts about HST. Rumors and misinformation spread through the market. Many manufacturers seized the opportunity, offering alternative components, alternative technologies, or improved controls on otherwise less efficient technologies. The common thread remained that this electronics-intense technology was not completely understood by an engineering community with mechanical, civil, and environmental backgrounds. It's not surprising that there was a backlash, or an avoidance of HST.
As much as the difficulties gained attention, the majority of installations for most HST manufacturers are, and continue to be, successful. The properly implemented projects are enjoying reduced electrical costs, quiet operation, and minimal maintenance.
This presentation explores the lessons learned from early installations, and provides guidance on proper selection, installation, and control. We will open the "black box" and attempt to debunk some of the myths in various areas:
High Speed Turbo technology continues to evolve. When properly applied, it can deliver big benefits.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Secondary Clarification 101
Stantec, United States of America;
Secondary clarification is a key component of Activated Sludge Systems (Activated Sludge). The performance of secondary clarifiers has direct impact on the overall performance and capacity of Activated Sludge. The primary result of poor performance of secondary clarifiers is an increase of effluent suspended solids (ESS) concentration, which in some cases may indicate a reduction of treatment capacity.
Optimal secondary clarification performance can be challenging and highly dependent on operation, design, and even construction considerations. This presentation discusses concepts of secondary clarification and summarizes tools to monitor and optimize secondary clarifier performance.
4:30pm - 5:15pm
Disinfection 101
1Gray and Osborne; 2Brown and Caldwell; ,
From the earliest examples of sanitation in 10,000 BC, to the London Cholera outbreak in 1858 that helped usher in modern sewers, disease prevention and disinfection have been at the heart of wastewater treatment. The increase in water reclamation, new research regarding pathogens of concern, and recognition of the ecological impacts of disinfection processes are driving more reliable, efficient and cost effective disinfection solutions for WRRFs that provide the maximum pathogen inactivation while producing minimal disinfection by-products and other potentially adverse effects to the environment.
This presentation will focus on the fundamental principles of wastewater disinfection. We will start by addressing the primary reasons for disinfection with a discussion of waterborne pathogens and significance for disease transmission. Various disinfection technologies (Peracetic Acid, UV, Ozone, and Chlorination through gas, bulk hypochlorite and on-site generation) and the advantages/disadvantages for each technology will then be presented; including: disinfection effectiveness for various types of pathogens, the design criteria for implementing each system, capital, operating and life cycle costs, operation and maintenance requirements and considerations for long term maintenance and efficiency of the system.
|3:00pm - 5:15pm
|Session 03C: Utility Management
Session Chair: Eric Habermeyer, City of Seattle;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Adaptive Planning – A Success Story from Coeur d'Alene, ID
1HDR, United States of America; 2City of Couer d'Alene, ID;
Over a 15 year time frame the City of Coeur d'Alene worked incrementally towards compliance goals, which at the time were considered beyond the levels of technology. Early on the City approached this challenge through a combination of planning for the worse case while educating regulators and stakeholders as well as conducting applied R&D to develop a more cost efficient compliance strategy.
Justifying millions in dollars for R&D with an uncertain outcome is no small feat for a utility serving just around 50,000, even in light of the over $80 million price tag for the conservative technology solution. However, R&D was as much a means to an end and as it was a vehicle of engagement and a way to extend the compliance schedule through meaningful advances in effluent water quality.
This strategy delivered on all fronts, extending the compliance schedule to 10 to 19 years, shaping the final TMDL towards higher and seasonal vs. monthly limits, and developing a treatment solution that reduced the compliance cost by 30 million. With the flexibility afforded through this approach the final technology solution that was one that was not anticipated or imagined at the start, a tertiary MBR for nitrification and phosphorus removal with chemical sludge again. Today the plant produces effluent quality well beyond what's required at a fraction of the costs originally anticipated. Finally, despite or perhpas because of these sizabel investment in applied R&D, the City of Couer d'Alene still has one of the lowest sewer rates for faclities with similar and even more lnient effuent requirements.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
30 Ideas In 30 Minutes: Tools To Engage, Motivate And Reassure Your Community
1Clean Water Services; 2Rogue Water; , ,
Effective communication builds trust, credibility and support for your organization. Messages need to be simple, nimble and meet the audience where they're at.
The water industry faces a list of challenges related to funding gaps, aging infrastructure, and emerging contaminants. Frustrations arise within industry insiders when they are met with a complete lack of support or financial backing from the public. Water professionals are tasked with effectively communicating the value of water to garner more public support for investment and build credibility and trust in their work.
The human brain is hardwired to process information in story form. In addition, the oldest part of our brain, the lizard brain, drives our gut response to protect our basic needs to survive and thrive above all else. Using this knowledge provides a framework that can be used to craft messages that resonate with our audiences. It reinforces the vital roles of empathy and sincerity in messaging and delivery. The end goal is meaningful impact that lasts beyond the initial interaction and influences behavior change.
In this snappy, round-robin format you'll receive communication best practices and takeaways curated from three, water industry marketing and communication gurus. Arianne Shipley and Stephanie Zavala founded Rogue Water in 2017. Rogue Water is a public communication consulting company dedicated to moving the communication needle forward in the water industry. Their Water in Real Life podcast interviews guests who are thought leaders, both inside and outside the water industry, offering insight and tools to create more impactful connections and project outcomes. Karen DeBaker navigates the marketing and communications program for Clean Water Services, serving more than 600,000 residents west of Portland, Oregon. She chaired PNCWA's Communication & Outreach Committee (formerly the Public Education Committee) for 11 years.
4:30pm - 5:15pm
Fanno Basin Pumping System: Reliable Operation after Years of Failures and Setbacks
City of Portland, Bureau of Environmental Services; ,
The Fanno Basin Pumping System consists of two sanitary pump stations, the first completed construction in 1999 and the second less than 20 years later in 2018. Together these stations can pump over 47 cubic feet per second (cfs), exceeding regulatory capacity requirements for the 4,500-acre Fanno Basin.
The Fanno Basin System history has been somewhat tortuous, primarily because the first pump station and related pressure lines resulted in a black eye with the local community. Design for the original station was completed in 1996 with the intent of replacing five older stations whose capacities were regularly being exceed. The original pump station was located within another agency's service area and neighbors were against its location from the beginning. Opposition increased after multiple pressure line failures created unacceptable conditions in the surrounding neighborhoods. After over 10 years of operation, the pressure line was replaced and very quickly the new lines exhibited signs of fatigue and required repair. During this design process, it was discovered that the existing station lacked adequate pumping capacity. Enraged neighbors successfully blocked expansion of the existing station through land use issues, causing the City of Portland to construct a separate pump station completed in 2016 on adjacent property.
After two years of flawless operation, the torture appears to be over. In the meantime, we have learned the following hard lessons:
1. Difficulty of estimating flows in a system with high rates of Inflow and Infiltration
2. The pitfall of Value Engineering proposals during the construction stage.
3. How to model and measure transients in a pressure line.
4. The damage caused by transients in a pressure line and the importance of surge protection.
5. The inadequacy of M11 design standards for lines subject to fatigue.
6. Managing a public process when the public distrusts you.
|3:00pm - 5:15pm
|Session 04C: Collection, Pump Stations and Conveyance: Pump Stations
Session Chair: Jason Morse, Whitney Equipment;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Modernizing a Remote Water Resource Recovery Facility in the Hoodland Area
1Murraysmith, United States of America; 2Clackamas County Water Environment Services; ,
Water Environment Services of Clackamas County (WES) owns and operates the Hoodland Water Resource Recovery Facility in Welches, Oregon. This facility, nestled in the foothills of Mt. Hood, treats wastewater from residential communities of Brightwood, Timberline Rim, and Welches and discharges to the Sandy River.
Constructed in 1981, the two-MGD facility has been well maintained and has consistently met its discharge permit limits. However, the facility was aging and demanding more operations and maintenance resources to remain a reliable asset. Further, its remote location and limited monitoring capabilities translates into longer response times with increasing labor costs. Finally, capacity improvements to the influent pump station were needed to convey projected flows and better flow control was desired to for consistent flows at the plant.
WES identified condition and capacity-based improvements to modernize this facility and increase reliability to better align with having the facility only staffed part time. These include a complete overhaul of the influent pump station, replacement of the WRRF motor-control center and emergency power supply. WES also wanted to extend its SCADA network to expand its ability to monitor and control this facility from its operations center which is 60 minutes away.
This presentation will outline the projects ability to:
Attendees will gain in sight of the facility operations, design considerations and plan development, construction progress, and lessons learned.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Necessity is the Mother of Invention: Delivering a Pump Upgrade In 6 Months
1Parametrix; 2Multnomah County Drainage District; 3Sandy Drainage Improvement Company; , ,
In May 2018, the Sandy Drainage Improvement Company's (SDIC) largest flood protection pump (18,000 gpm), became inoperable after 77 years of use. To protect the drainage basin from flooding during the next rainy season, SDIC needed a replacement pump and support systems designed, advertised, fabricated, and installed by October 2018, all within a limited capital budget. The new equipment needed to:
To meet the aggressive schedule, the SDIC-Parametrix team worked backwards from the end date to establish minimum time periods for each activity. They implemented a unique combination of procurement and construction delivery methods to accelerate the project schedule:
To meet technical requirements, the SDIC-Parametrix team analyzed operational data and maintenance history. This guided selection of appropriate facility-specific technical features and a pump with a unique percentile-optimized operating curve. The team also worked together to balance risks and project priorities leading to choices: for example, providing more comprehensive field testing instead of factory testing ensured on-time equipment delivery.
By working closely together, the SDIC-Parametrix team, designed and installed the pump in time for Portland's heavy rains. The pump also included client specific features such as:
4:30pm - 5:15pm
Lessons Learned: Optimizing Alder Pump Station Operation in Portland's Eastside CSO
1Brown and Caldwell; 2City of Portland, Bureau of Environmental Services; ,
Alder Pump Station, in Portland's Eastside Combined Sewer Overflow (ESCSO) system, is critical to protecting water quality in the Willamette River. Constructed in 1952 as a caisson with a wetwell and dry pit containing four pumps, it was elevated above the surrounding area to protect against flooding. Alder pump station has been historically undersized, and this project increased capacity of the pump station, and modified the control strategy to better integrate with the ESCSO system. Prior to upgrade, Alder Pump Station was a 4-pump facility: two (2) 750 gpm dry weather pumps and two (2) 1,500 gpm storm pumps. Following completion of the project, it has two, 2,100 gpm sanitary pumps, and two, 1,100 gpm storm pumps.
The pump station uses sanitary pumping capacity, diversion weirs, gravity system storage, and tunnel storage to significantly reduce river discharge frequency and volume. Under normal dry weather operation, the station pumps to the Southeast Interceptor, during wet weather events, the system diverts flow away from the station to reduce discharges to the river. The upgraded Alder Pump Station now pumps excess flow to the river only when the ESCSO Tunnel is full and influent flow continues to exceed capacity of the sanitary pumps. Modeling of the service area demonstrates this condition will only occur four times per winter, meeting NPDES permit requirements.
This project completely reconfigured the station, converting it into a trench style wetwell with submersible pumps. The caisson remained, was seismically stabilized via micropiles, all internal walls were demolished to construct the wetwell. A new building was constructed above the flood plain, allowing vehicle access.
This presentation will give an overview of the ESCSO system, the modeling and design criteria that shaped the pump station upgrade, and give an overview of the lessons learned from the construction challenges.
|3:00pm - 5:15pm
|Session 05C: Resource Recovery: Reclaimed Water
Session Chair: Anthony Tartaglione, Black and Veatch;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Pure Water Monterey: Northern California's First Indirect Potable Reuse Project
Kennedy Jenks;
Monterey One Water Agency (M1W) and Monterey Peninsula Water Management District have partnered to create Pure Water Monterey (PWM), a $110M groundwater replenishment project. This unique indirect potable reuse project utilizes different sources of water; including municipal wastewater, impaired agricultural drainage, food processing wastewater, surface water and storm water runoff. Purified water will be used to recharge the Seaside Groundwater Basin and create a pathway to a sustainable water supply. The social, environmental and economic benefits of this project are significant, and go well beyond the primary objective of creating over 3,500 acre-feet per year of new potable water supply.
The 5-MGD Advanced Water Purification Facility (AWPF) is designed for future expansion and the treatment processes include ozone pre-oxidation, microfiltration, reverse osmosis, UV advanced oxidation, and post-treatment stabilization processes. The purified water will be pumped from the AWPF site to a conveyance system and a well injection field located about 10 miles away. The water in the aquifer combines with the local groundwater and is withdrawn by existing groundwater wells.
The AWPF is currently under construction and scheduled to startup in Fall 2019. This presentation provides an overview of the PWM project and focuses on how the various elements of the AWPF operate together to meet the water quality objectives. Attendees can expect to get a first-hand look at what it is like to take a full-scale Advanced Water Purification Facility from paper to dirt! We will cover key design features of the AWPF, that Kennedy Jenks and the project team designed to not only produce high quality water, but to have features that would allow for easier construction, start-up, and maintenance. This presentation provides an opportunity to hear about Northern California's first indirect potable reuse project and about the future of water!
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Peracetic Acid Disinfection Of Wastewater Including Class A Reclaimed Water
1Parametrix; 2LOTT Clean Water Alliance; ,
There is growing interest in disinfection of municipal wastewater with peracetic acid. Its advantages include safety comparable to hypochlorite, no need for dechlorination, no concern about nitrite lock, and disinfection in short contact times. However, its potential disadvantages include rapid degradation once added to wastewater, potential increases in effluent BOD, and incompatibility with chlorine disinfectants.
The Budd Inlet Treatment Plant (BITP), owned and operated by the LOTT Clean Water Alliance, will install a temporary disinfection system in April, 2019 using peracetic acid in order to provide disinfection during a separate ultraviolet system disinfection upgrade construction project. This presentation will present lessons learned in the design, implementation, and operation of the temporary system and in particular the strategy used to combine peracetic acid effluent disinfection with operation of an on-site Class A reclaimed water facility.
A portion of effluent from the BITP is diverted to the reclaimed water facility where hypochlorite is required for disinfection and to provide a residual in the distribution system. The interactions between peracetic acid and hypochlorite have not been well studied, but the chemicals are believed to neutralize each other. Through significant laboratory testing, LOTT measured this effect in BITP effluent and developed a procedure for adjusting the operation of the reclaimed water plant to account for the effects of peracetic acid.
Other challenges faced included limited contact time during high flow periods and very low effluent BOD permit limits. Significant laboratory testing was conducted to estimate the effects peracetic acid which indicated that it will be an effective disinfectant at contact times as low as 9 minutes. Additionally, the testing revealed different formulations of peracetic acid have different impacts on effluent BOD. Important factors to consider are the percentage of stabilizing components of the supplied peracetic acid including hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid.
4:30pm - 5:15pm
Evaluation of Compressible Media and Cloth Disk Filtration Technologies for Unrestricted Reuse
1Kennedy/Jenks Consultants, United States of America; 2Schreiber, LLC; 3Aqua-Aerobics Systems, Inc.; 4WesTech, Inc.;
The California Water Resources Control Board (State Board), Division of Drinking Water (DDW) requires tertiary treated wastewater to meet certain effluent turbidity limits, as set forth by the California Water Recycling Criteria (Title 22, Sec. 60320.5). Filtration technologies must be demonstrated to meet performance requirement to gain Title 22 approval. Evaluation and testing results from the following three filtration technology demonstration and Title 22 approval projects will be included in this presentation:
1) A tertiary filtration pilot and evaluation study was conducted to assess the performance of a new type of filter medium for the compressible medium filtration (CMF) technology also known as the "Fuzzy Filter". The pilot study was conducted at the City of Roseville's Pleasant Grove (Roseville) Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) from April 12, 2010 through July 8, 2010. The performance of the new Fuzzy Filter medium was evaluated, and Title 22 approval was obtained at filtration rate of 40 gpm/ft2.
2) The purpose of this project was to evaluate three cloth media disk filters at higher filtration rates. Each of the three cloths have previously obtained Title 22 acceptance, but at filtration rates of 6 to 7 gpm/ft2. The objective of this testing was to revisit the performance attributes of these media to seek a practical limit of hydraulic capacity while remaining compliant with Title 22 requirements. The cloths which are subject to this peak-capacity testing included OptiFiber PA-13, PES-13, and PES-14. A single disk filter system was installed and commissioned to treat secondary effluent generated at the Roseville WWTP. Testing and monitoring was conducted from January 28, 2016 until April 27, 2016. This study demonstrated the filtration performance of the cloth media filtration technology in accordance with Title 22 water reuse criteria and approval was obtained at flow rate of 22 gpm/ft2.
3) Another CMF technology, FlexFilter, was evaluated for Title 22 compliance at the Linda County Water District WWTP. Pilot filtration project was conducted between August 2018 and January 2019. This project demonstrated the performance of the FlexFilter technology in accordance with Title 22 water reuse criteria at a filtration rate of 12 gpm/ft2.
|3:00pm - 5:15pm
|Session 06C: Construction /Alternative Delivery
Session Chair: Dick Talley, Stantec Consulting Services, Inc;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Commissioning a Treatment Plant for a Future Owner: The Story of Tehaleh
1Kennedy/Jenks Consultants; 2SL Environmental; ,
The Tehaleh Development is an employment based planned community that sits on 5,000 acres just South of Bonney Lake, WA. Full build out of the development is upwards of 10,000 homes which equates to nearly 25,000 people. After attempting multiple options to develop sewer capacity, the developer, Newland Communities, decided to build their own wastewater treatment plant to ensure capacity for the longevity of the community. Before embarking on the journey to plan, design and construct the Cascadia WWTP, Newland entered into a developer agreement with Pierce County Planning and Public Works (Sewer Department) to detail the steps of the process including testing, commissioning and ownership/operations transition of the WWTP to Pierce County. The WWTP was commissioned in October of 2018 with significant coordination between Newland, Pierce County, the engineer, Kennedy/Jenks and the contractor, McClure and Sons. Commissioning was a four-month process in which Pierce County was operating the WWTP prior to accepting ownership which started with a two-week process of demonstrating permit compliance for total nitrogen removal (which the WWTP did by the second day of full operations). Some challenges encountered included seeding the biological process, programming of the MBR system with the final effluent pumps and maintaining utility water pressure and availability for screening operation. This presentation will discuss and highlight the challenges, successes and lessons learned from this unique process of commissioning a developer lead WWTP with the future owner.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
36-inch UV-CIPP: How a Newer Technology Can Reduce Downtown Impacts
1City of Salem, Oregon; 2Murraysmith; ,
The City of Salem (City) identified the Liberty Street Trunk Sewer as deteriorating due to hydrogen sulfide degradation and in need of rehabilitation. The trunk is approximately 3,200 linear feet of 24-inch to 36-inch diameter sewer, is 20+ feet deep, and generally runs south to north within an Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) controlled right of way (State Highway 99E). The roadway is one of the main thoroughfares that provides access in and out of downtown Salem. Many access manholes for the sewer are in the center of the busy two-lane roadway, with residential properties on either side.
The City evaluated the feasible technologies that not only would provide the extension of asset life, but minimize impacts in this heavily-traveled traffic corridor. Based on work hour restrictions, ODOT requirements for maintaining traffic, impact to residences, present and future sewer capacity needs, and bypass pumping costs and complexities, the City selected ultraviolet-light cured-in-place-pipe (UV-CIPP) as the rehabilitation technology.
This presentation will focus on the project constraints that led to the selection of UV-CIPP, the differences between UV and thermal curing processes and construction laydown area, and lessons learned during construction.
4:30pm - 5:15pm
Elevating the Profile of the Tualatin Interceptor through Trenchless Construction
1Kennedy Jenks Consultants, United States of America; 2Clean Water Services; ,
The Tualatin Interceptor conveys wastewater from suburban Washington County to Clean Water Services' Durham Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility (AWWTF). As part of the West Durham Basin Improvements Program, the interceptor from King City to the Durham AWWTF is being replaced with a new interceptor that provides capacity to buildout of the service area. The existing interceptor was constructed in 1974 and includes two inverted siphon crossings of the Tualatin River. As the service area is projected to grow, new larger inverted siphons will be required if the system will continue to operate exclusively by gravity.
Clean Water Services' project success criteria required the new crossings maintain gravity conveyance across the river, have a low maintenance costs, could be constructed within the required timeframe, and maintain their commitment to the protection of the Tualatin River watershed. These criteria limited the number of viable solutions. The original siphons where constructed using open-cut methods, however, open cut construction would not likely be permitted in 2018; therefore, the project team began focusing on trenchless technology.
The project team evaluated alternatives for the King City Siphon and the Cook Park Siphon to meet the project success criteria. However, given the developed nature of the crossings in 2018 and the topographical constraints of the existing gravity system, design and construction using traditional means and trenchless technologies were challenged. Trenchless alternatives were considered for both crossings, and a different construction method was selected for each siphon based on feasibility of meeting Clean Water Services' success criteria.
This presentation will walk through the development of alternatives, the construction methods evaluated, and how the District's criteria were met for the Tualatin River Crossing.
The project was completed as a Progressive Design-Build project and included a North American record for tightest vertical curve Microtunnel.
|3:00pm - 5:15pm
|Session 07C: Operations and Maintenance
Session Chair: Samantha Schreiner, WSC Inc.;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Use An Electronic O&M Manual As A Living Document For Knowledge Transfer And Storage
Everett Water Pollution Control Facility, WA, United States of America;
How will you transfer the in-depth knowledge of your senior operators and maintenance technicians to your new hires? Using an online electronic Operations and Maintenance Manual can be an incredible asset to any plant for storing and transferring that knowledge. At the Everett WPCF in Washington, the e O&M Manual is a living repository for interactive process and operations diagrams, equipment and control data, SOPs, equipment and contractor manuals, photos, as-built drawings, equipment modification tracking, and more, all interlinked to each other as a comprehensive tool for both experienced and new employees. You can include libraries for operation records, maintenance records, and SOP training videos. You can include specs in your new contracts for bidders to add their new construction to the manual. This presentation is a great learning experience for plants with paper manuals, digital text manuals, multiple online document storage areas, and established e O&M manuals. See where your plant can improve! Come learn what your plant could do with an online electronic O&M manual by taking a visual tour of Everett's e O&M manual on Sharepoint and ask questions for the presenting operator who has been populating the manual.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Piloting Methods and Technologies to Track Impacts to WWTPs in the Collection System
Clean Water Services, United States of America; ,
Clean Water Services is a special service district that provides wastewater collection and treatment for more than 600,000 residents and hundreds of industries throughout Washington County, Oregon. Although the majority of the non-domestic wastestreams are permitted through CWS' robust pretreatment program, occasional impairment to the wastewater treatment plant processes have occurred from unknown sources in the collection system. These impacts can seriously disrupt processes at treatment plants and can take significant time, effort and cost to restore. These type of impacts are an issue for many wastewater treatment utilities with large numbers of non-domestic sources of waste in the collection system. While CWS continues to redefine and improve source control within the pretreatment program and it implements an Operational Incident Response program, the episodic nature of the impacts makes it difficult for CWS to successfully chase non-domestic impacts upstream and control the offending source. The impacts typically have not been detected until after they have affected a plant, and personnel dispatched to sample key manholes often arrive too late to sample the 'plug' of pollutants responsible for the impact. To help detect impacts before they occur and track them to their sources, CWS is testing innovative inline technologies that provide real-time monitoring within the sanitary collection system. CWS has launched pilot projects to test technologies that provide telemetered sensing of various water quality parameters, algorithms to detect potential impacts, and automatically triggered sample collection. We installed multiple smart monitoring systems to detect potential impacts in real time before they affect the treatment plants, identify the pollutants responsible, and track them back to their sources. This talk will describe the technologies tested in the pilot projects to date, describe the successes and lessons learned, and walk through considerations for other wastewater utilities seeking to achieve the same goals.
4:30pm - 5:15pm
Re-Evaluating Domestic Flow Patterns with Modern Tools and Analytics
City of Bellevue, WA;
Historically, the City of Bellevue grossly estimated non-residential domestic sewage volumes and flow patterns as one, system-wide commercial average. This data was limited by the customer classifications used in the City's billing system. This presentation describes how the City is using modern tools (GIS, advanced water meters, etc.) and publicly available data from tax records and other agencies to understand, analyze and predict domestic water use patterns and volumes at high resolution based on commercial sector. This re-invention of planning criteria has the potential to significantly improve modeling accuracy, and eliminate the costs and community disruption of some development-driven sewer capital improvements based on overly-conservative assumptions. The presentation will also describe some of the related pitfalls and challenges, the need to QA/QC data gathered from external sources, and the potential for further refinement with advanced metering infrastructure (smart water meters).
|3:00pm - 5:15pm
|Session 08C: Stormwater: Metals Treatment
Session Chair: Richard Boyle, Clean Water Services;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Removal Efficiencies, Uptake Mechanisms, and Competitive Effects of Copper and Zinc in Various Stormwater Filter Media
Portland State University, United States of America;
Polluted stormwater, if not treated, can compromise water quality throughout our hydrologic cycle, adversely affecting aquatic ecosystems. Common stormwater pollutants, copper and zinc, have been identified as primary toxicants in multiple freshwater and marine environments. For small-scale generators, stormwater management can be cumbersome and implementation of common BMPs impractical thus catch basins are popular though not the most environmentally conscious and sustainable option. This study aims to characterize the potential of a mobile media filter operation for the treatment and on-site recycling of catch basin stormwater. The removal capacities of various commercially available filter media (e.g., a common perlite; Earthlite™, a medium largely composed of biochars; and Filter33™, a proprietary porous medium) were measured using binary injection solutions modeled after local catch basin stormwater characteristics. The results of filtration experiments, rapid small-scale column tests (RSSCTs), indicate that the transport of metals in Perlite is primarily impacted by nonspecific sorption whereas in Earthlite™ and Filter33™ both nonspecific and specific sorption are present. For all media and experimentation, there was a consistent preferential uptake of copper such that copper displayed delayed arrival and/or greater removal than zinc. Moreover, the observed snow plow effects and concentration plateaus in Earthlite™ and Filter33™ RSSCTs suggest rate limited ion exchange and specific sorption in addition to ion competition. Earthlite™ exhibited an approach velocity dependent removal efficiency in the RSSCTs and pseudo second-order uptake behavior for zinc in kinetic batch experiments. At the lab-scale equivalent of the proposed field-scale flow rate, Filter33™ displayed the greatest average zinc removal of 8.6 mg/g. In all, this research indicates that test parameters (i.e., pH, competitive ions solutions, empty bed contact time, flow rate) based on the natural environment and field scale operation can greatly impact removal efficiency in filter media.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Remediating Stormwater: Effects of a Bioretention Swale on Coliforms and Metals
Washington State University; Whatcom Community College;
Lower Fever Creek in Bellingham, WA (a tributary of Bellingham Bay) is listed as Category 5 under 303(d) of the Clean Water Act by Washington State Water Quality Assessment for zinc, coliform bacteria, and dissolved oxygen concentrations. The City of Bellingham Public Works Department installed a bioretention swale in an effort to remediate the urban stormwater runoff entering Lower Fever Creek for metals concentrations and suspended solids. This project evaluates the effectiveness of the bioretention swale for its remediation of zinc, copper, lead, and coliform bacteria.
We determined concentrations of the analytes before the installation of the bioretention swale at three different flow rates. We quantified zinc, copper and lead by ICP-MS, and quantified coliform bacteria by membrane filtration. After the swale was installed, we determined concentrations of the analytes directly upstream and downstream of the swale, by the same methods.
Results from before the swale's installation indicated that concentrations of the analytes (copper, zinc, and coliforms) increased with the flow rate of the discharge. Lead concentrations were not quantifiable.
Soon after the swale's installation, results indicated that zinc concentrations decreased after passing through the swale, coliform concentrations decreased, copper concentrations increased, and lead concentrations were not quantifiable.
In a high flow event when stormwater discharge overtopped the spillway, coliform concentrations decreased after passing through the swale, and zinc and copper concentrations were not significantly affected by passing through the swale.
Results indicated possible matrix effects in the stormwater discharge. After these were quantified, results – from samples taken in spring – indicated that the concentrations of both copper and zinc were lower after passing through the swale.
In all, the swale's treatment of zinc and coliform concentrations was consistently effective, except in very high flow events. Early on, copper concentrations discharging from the swale were higher than concentrations feeding into the swale. From autumn to spring, the swale's treatment of copper concentrations improved, such that copper concentrations were lower after passing through the swale. The swale's effects on lead concentrations were not quantifiable.
4:30pm - 5:15pm
Investigation Of Oregon Native Plants For Remediation Of Trace Metals and Organic Pollutants in Stormwater
Oregon State Univeristy, United States of America;
Stormwater collects dissolved and particulate phase pollutants from improved surfaces and carries these to receiving water bodies, degrading their quality. Pollutants of concern include heavy metals, trace organics, sediments, and nutrients. Infiltration systems of various designs are increasingly being used to provide passive treatment of these waters. Inclusion of plants in these systems provides potential for phytoremediation, prevention of erosion, increased soil porosity, and an aesthetic quality against the built environment. However, plants and their associate microbes vary greatly in their abilities to provide additional degradation and removal of stormwater pollutants. In this study, 20 native Oregon plants were investigated for potential treatment of Cu2+, Zn2+, PCBs, PAHs, and PFASs in surface runoff collected from a public works utility site. Treatment was evaluated by final concentrations of constituents in plant roots and shoots compared with the accumulation in the soil phase and total removal was calculated with mass balances on the treated water. Enrichment of plant microbiomes in the rhizosphere and the bulk soil was evaluated by metagenomic profiling of 16SrRNA, mono-, and di-oxygenase genes.
|Date: Tuesday, 10/Sep/2019
|8:00am - 9:30am
|Session 09A: Leadership, Social Equity and Workforce Development: Social Equity
Session Chair: Lara Kammereck, Carollo;
8:00am - 8:45am
Race and Social Justice Initiative: Who Has a Seat at the Table?
Seattle Public Utilities, United States of America; , ,
Often when we think of race and social justice initiatives (RSJI) at organizations and utilities we think of trainings and workshops, but we often miss stakeholder inclusion. A successful RSJI program encompasses more than just training, it changes the way we do business. At Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), we have changed the way we do business by creating a Racial Equity Toolkit (RET) and implementing it on our projects.
This presentation will cover a few specific drainage and waste water projects to show how the RET was implemented, what the outcomes were, and any lessons learned along the way. We will illustrate the immediate and long-term benefits of implementing the RET on large- and small-scale projects, such as the Henderson Combined Sewer Overflow project ($40M), and Haller Lake Facility Improvements project ($1.2M). We will show how implementation of the RET on these projects allowed for earlier engagement of community members and operation and maintenance staff which enabled partnership ahead of the planning stage resulting in more valuable final products.
As a utility we recognize that we need to be accountable to the rate payer for the work that we do, while being inclusive and imbedding Race and Social Justice. For this to happen we needed to be more creative and to ensure that we were targeting underserved communities. Our customers and employees both deserve an equitable level of service no matter their neighborhood, socioeconomic status, or ability to navigate SPUs process. Our goal in sharing the RET is to educate, uplift and provide tools to those looking to implement equity at their organizations and in their communities.
8:45am - 9:30am
Advancing the Role of Equity in Portland BES Resiliency Planning
1City of Portland, Environmental Services; 2Brown and Caldwell; ,
The City of Portland is a national leader in incorporating equity considerations into local government's business practices. Like its sister agencies around the country, the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) is committed to more equitably serve its community members through its business practices and to use its stormwater and wastewater investments, policies, and programs as a tool to provide better services to under-served and under-represented populations ensuring that all rate payers enjoy equitable services. As a part of the BES Resiliency Master Plan (RMP), BES requested assistance in advancing its process of including equity considerations in its RMP's capital project selection, prioritization, development, as well as in their future capital planning work. The project team reviewed some of the City of Portland's current efforts around equity, reviewed national best practices in incorporating equity into resiliency planning, and explored the progress being made by industry peers in the incorporation of equity into capital planning. Peer agencies, including King County in the Seattle Metro area, and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission programs were reviewed. Finding that this practice is largely in its infancy, the project team drafted an equity framework for incorporating equity considerations into the RMP. This presentation will review the state of the practice and provide an overview of the proposed process and summarize BES's next steps.
|8:00am - 9:30am
|Session 10A: Wastewater 101: Solids Treatment
Session Chair: Matt Hewitt, West Yost;
8:00am - 8:45am
Digester Mixer Performance Comparison in Caldwell, ID
1Keller Associates, Inc., United States of America; 2City of Caldwell, United States of America; , ,
After both of their 65-year old digesters broke down, the City of Caldwell needed additional solids treatment capacity at its wastewater resource recovery facility. Rather than copy their other digesters, the City wanted to maximize its investment by investigating new technologies. The project objectives were to construct a new facility that provided the needed capacity, maximized their use of digester biogas, and saved the City energy. The result was a $7.0 million solids handling and digestion improvement project.
As part of the improvements, an innovative linear motion mixing system was selected and installed on the new digester. The linear motion mixer had the potential to use significantly less electricity than the previously used pump mixing technology. The City has a similar size digester at the plant that utilizes a pump mixed system. This presentation will present findings comparing the digester performance using the new linear motion mixer and the pump mixed system.
8:45am - 9:30am
Sticky Business - Thickened Solids Pumping 101
MURRAYSMITH, United States of America;
The difficult job of pumping thickened solids has plagued wastewater treatment plant designers and operators for decades. While numerous studies have proposed various methods for the design of thickened solids pumping systems, what method to use should be chosen carefully as there is not one universally accepted method to address all the various solids types and pumping scenarios.
When the solids content of a flow stream is below 2-3%, it is typically considered "dilute" and special design considerations are not typically required. Solids streams at a wastewater treatment plant, however, are commonly thickened to higher concentrations to optimize the operation and the capacity of downstream processes. In doing so, the conveyance of this thickened sludge becomes considerably more difficult. The thickened solids streams no longer behave like water when pumped, but still contain enough moisture to preclude the use of conveyance mechanisms used for dewatered solids streams. This can lead to both design and operational problems that must be thoughtfully addressed.
This presentation will provide an overview of:
· how and why thickened solids stream pumping varies from dilute streams
· the most common methods used to design pumping systems for thickened solids and when to use them
· point out a faulty methodology in two very commonly used reference books that can result in significantly undersized pumps
· compare the methods against each other and with real-world data
· equipment and operational factors to consider in facility design.
|8:00am - 9:30am
|Session 11A: Utility Management
Session Chair: Hunter Bennett-Daggett, Tetra Tech;
8:00am - 8:45am
Impact of Water Conservation and Climate Change on Wastewater Treatment and Utilities in General
1HDR, United States of America; 2IAT, Stuttgart, Germany;
Across the industrial world water use has been on the decline for decades. While the US remains a country with a high per capita water use; it has been and it continues to decline, and very importantly has significant potential for further reduction. This reduction is driven by a combination of more efficient fixtures and appliance and increased awareness and can be accelerated regionally by severe drought conditions such as recently seen in Texas and California. The reduced consumption has obvious water conservation benefits in general, there are also direct and indirect impacts on both the water supply as well as wastewater conveyance and treatment. More concentrated influents also means higher concentrations of compliance relevant problem parameters such as total and refractory nitrogen, soluble nonreactive phosphorus, total dissolved solids, and any number of emerging contaminants. Numeric effluent requirements are more difficult to meet as influent concentrations increase.
The impact of water conservation can be amplified by infiltration and inflow control measures. While it may seem counter intuitive, I&I reduction can have the negative side effect of exacerbating the issue by further reducing the flow in the collection system during dry weather condition. Locally, droughts can accelerate flow reduction through sinking ground water levels (less I&I) as well as mandatory or voluntary use reduction. When unplanned this can throw utilities into financial turmoil because in many places sewer rates are tied to water use. Further complicating matters, climate change and more extreme weather require infrastructure investment to handle the other end of the flow range.
The subject of water conservation and climate change vs. water and wastewater infrastructure is one that the industry as a whole, utilities, engineers, and regulators have to tackle.
8:45am - 9:30am
Technical Assistance and Funding Opportunities for Small Systems
USDA Rural Development, United States of America; ,
The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Rural Development (RD) Water Environmental Program is one of the major sources of funding and technical assistance to small water and waste systems. Currently, Rural Development is allocated around $4 billion in loans and grants per year for water and waste infrastructure projects to small and rural communities. RD recognizes that to build sustainable and resilient water and wastewater systems, it is crucial to create and support the operational and managerial capacity of rural communities, while simultaneously streamlining access to funding, and coordinating with other funders to creatively finance infrastructure.
More than 79 percent of public wastewater systems are small systems, meaning they serve 10,000 or fewer people. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's State Revolving Funds (SRF) Programs' Clean Watersheds Needs Survey estimated a need of almost $271 billion for wastewater systems over the next 20 years. Rural communities face unique challenges and often require financial, technical, managerial and operational assistance to build sustainable infrastructure.
RD supports technical assistance for water and wastewater systems by partnering with the National Rural Water Association (NRWA) and the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP). These non-profit organizations provide technical assistance to small water and waste systems, with a presence in all 50 states.
This session will cover the types of technical, managerial and operational assistance that are available to rural systems, and how to obtain it – usually at no cost to the system. This session will briefly cover funding opportunities available from USDA Rural Development. Case studies from water and wastewater systems will highlight how this assistance helps to rebuild and sustain rural systems across the United States.
This presentation is designed to be a total of 0.5 hours presentation with a 10 minute Q&A.
Learning goals
Funding opportunities available from USDA RD for water and waste projects.
Grants available to help with the application process, preliminary studies and environmental documents.
Technical assistance available through USDA RD partners.
|8:00am - 9:30am
|Session 12A: Operations and Maintenance: Odor Control
Session Chair: Susan Schlangen, Water Systems Consulting;
8:00am - 8:45am
Clearing the Air: King County Wastewater Treatment Division's Odor Control Solutions in Two Seattle Neighborhoods
1Parametrix, United States of America; 2King County Wastewater Treatment Division; 3Water Works Engineers;
There is a complex history of odor issues associated with the King County Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) Elliott Bay Interceptor (EBI) and associated Trunk Sewers that serve the Seattle metro area. These issues vary with precipitation amounts, ambient temperature, and sewer flow conditions. This presentation will examine how WTD tackled specific odor challenges in its sewer system located within the Alki Beach and Interbay neighborhoods of Seattle, WA.
This presentation will specifically cover the following:
8:45am - 9:30am
The Cost of Being a Good Neighbor
1Anue Water Technologies, United States of America; 2Jacobs Inc.; 3Pima County, Arizona;
Is there a "rule of thumb" for what a top odor performing utility spends to keep odors under control? How do you measure your utility's performance as a good neighbor? This presentation examines practices and expenditures of five of the top performing utilities in the country who are recognized as good neighbors in their communities. We will talk about how the approaches of the best city programs differ from the rest of the pack. We will also break down the capital spending and operating and maintenance costs of odor prevention and mitigation, as well as how these utilities staff their departments for responding to public observations on odor.
Like fingerprints, no two treatment plants are alike. What works for one treatment plant might not work for everyone. There are differences in flow, population served, climate/temperature, age and condition of infrastructure, characterization of the influent, offsite odor goals, and many other factors. But there are practices and decisions that are common among the best performing utilities in how they minimize their off-site impact. This study examines the approach of capital investment and ongoing operations to reduce odor impact.
Consequences of offsite odor goal selection have a direct impact on capital costs (CAPEX) and annual operations and maintenance (O&M) costs (OPEX) related to implementation of an odor program. More stringent odor standards result in higher present-worth costs because more stringent standards typically require larger, more expensive odor control systems that consume greater amounts of labor and energy and other consumables (e.g., chemicals, media, etc.). This presentation examines these costs in detail.
Co-authors include an experienced utility manager who has championed odor performance for his County in Arizona, an odor practice leader for a top engineering consulting firm, and a business development professional who has worked with clients on solving odor problems for over ten years. All three have contributed to industry knowledge over the years through WEF and A&WMA committees, conferences and workshops.
|8:00am - 9:30am
|Session 13A: Planning, Resiliency, Climate Science: Biosolids Planning
Session Chair: Mark Cullington, Kennedy/Jenks Consultants;
8:00am - 8:45am
Planning a Biosolids Recycling Program from the Ground Up in Bellingham
1Brown and Caldwell; 2Brown and Caldwell;
For the last 40 years, the City of Bellingham has successfully utilized an incineration process to manage residuals from the Post Point Wastewater Treatment Plant. As the existing equipment reaches the end of its useful life, air emissions regulations become more stringent, and the City looks ahead to the type of utility it would like to be over the next 50 years, the City hopes to move from a utility that disposes residuals to one that recovers resources.
To bring this vision to reality, the City is underway with a review of solids management options and development of a plan for moving forward with an economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable solution. The first phase of work considered a range of potential solutions, using public outreach and stakeholder sessions to identify key objectives. Ultimately, a triple bottom line plus (TBL+) evaluation concluded class A biosolids production with local beneficial use was the sustainable solution of choice.
At the end of 2018, specific aspects of the new program were evaluated (e.g., composting versus soil blending, digestion techniques, biogas end uses) using the same TBL+ approach to form consensus and buy-in from the stakeholders. The City now has a clear path forward for delivering sustainable, publicly accepted, recovered biosolid resources over the next 50 years.
Included in this presentation will be discussion on the:
8:45am - 9:30am
A Collaborative Pathway to Class A Biosolids Composting in Sweet Home, Oregon
1City of Sweet Home, Oregon; 2Murraysmith, Inc.; , , ,
Following one of the most successful collection system rehabilitation programs in the Pacific Northwest, the City of Sweet Home, Oregon is embarking on the last major upgrade to their wastewater system – expansion of its wastewater treatment plant to increase capacity, address severe deterioration of the aging facility and improve operations and maintenance through implementation of automation upgrades.
In recent years, the lack of headworks screening has limited the ability of the Sweet Home WWTP to produce a high quality Class B Biosolids product suitable for land application on sites included in the City's Biosolids Management Plan. Consequently, the City currently spends over $100,000 annually for hauling and landfilling dewatered cake solids produced by the facility's aging belt filter press.
As part of the planned upgrades, the City is planning to construct a new offsite Class A Biosolids composting facility using cake solids from a new dewatering facility to be constructed as part the City's $28M WWTP Imrpvements Project. Green waste and hog fuel feedstocks to support the composting process will be sourced locally and the finished compost product will be used on City-owned park and open spaces. In addition, the City is anticipating a community giveaway program for local residents.
The presentation will provide an overview of the City's WWTP Improvements Project, initial layouts for the offsite Class A Biosolids composting facility, overview of composting alternatives and costs, discussions with nearby communities related to a regional composting facility and the collaborative approach between City and Murraysmith staff throughout the planning process.
|8:00am - 9:30am
|Session 14A: Collection, Pump Stations, and Conveyance: Hydraulics
Session Chair: Adam Crafts, Murraysmith;
8:00am - 8:45am
Bringing Sewers To Un-Sewered Urban Areas: The Tukwila Loop Project
RH2 Engineering; ,
In 2015, the approximately 70-acre Tukwila Loop neighborhood in Tukwila, Washington was one of the last large, un-sewered urban areas within Valley View Sewer District's service area. Although located near a new light rail mass transit station, it was difficult for the existing residential neighborhood to redevelop due to lack of sewers. Additionally, many septic systems in the neighborhood had failed, and high coliform counts were detected in downstream surface water. Rather than gradually connecting this neighborhood to the collection system in a piecemeal fashion as redevelopment demands increased, the opportunity to construct gravity sewers throughout the Tukwila Loop as a single large project presented itself as the more viable option.
The project was designed to be constructed in two phases. The first phase involved constructing the sewer mains, primarily using traditional open-cut methods. Directional drilling was used for certain challenging alignments. The second phase consisted of side sewer construction on private property. Acquiring the necessary utility easements from property owners and permits to build sewer mains in areas of WSDOT right-of-way with historically unstable slopes required extensive coordination.
A Washington State Department of Ecology grant/loan application for this project was submitted in 2017. The project was ranked third out of 160 applications and ultimately received $4.5 million in grant funding, significantly defraying the $6.9 million total project cost. Connection charges for property owners were set to increase over time, incentivizing property owners to connect at time of construction. Community Block Development Grant funding was also available for low-income households. As of construction completion in early 2019, approximately 84 percent of property owners in the Loop area had connected to the system.
This project serves as a model of the steps necessary to successfully conduct public outreach, design, fund, and construct a collection system in a large un-sewered urban area.
8:45am - 9:30am
Siphons Galore: Crossing under a Lake, a Hill, and a Highway by Designing Inverted Siphons for King County's Mercer Enatai Project
1Jacobs; 2King County Wastewater Treatment Division; ,
King County's Mercer and Enatai Interceptors were built in the 1960's and extend over 14,000 feet from Mercer Island into the Enatai neighborhood of Bellevue, Washington. Large portions of the existing system are designed to operate under a surcharged condition, and the system includes an inverted siphon crossing of the East Channel of Lake Washington. The Interceptors primarily receive flows North Mercer Pump Station but also collect flows from the local City of Mercer Island and City of Bellevue sewer systems. Some parts of the system are reaching the end of their useful lives, and future peak flows are projected to exceed the system's capacity shortly.
After the County chartered the need to upgrade the existing interceptors, an in-depth alternative analysis and preliminary design process was completed and an alignment and profile were chosen that addressed the combination of technical, environmental, permitting, and construction challenges presented by the project. This new system will include three inverted siphon segments. The first siphon will be the 96th Ave Siphon which will cross under Interstate 90 and will convey local sewerage to the North Mercer Interceptor via two 450 LF long, 8-inch and 14-inch barrels. The second siphon will be a 2,460 LF crossing of Lake Washington's East Channel which will use three barrels (12", 18", 18") to convey flows ranging from the 2.5 MGD to 13.9 MGD. The third siphon segment will operate in conjunction with a rehabilitated existing line to convey flows from the East Channel Siphon and additional local flows from the City of Bellevue to the Sweyolocken pump station. Low to moderate flows will continue to go to the rehabilitated existing line and peak flows of up to 11.95 MGD will be diverted to the a 3,000 LF 30-inch diameter Enatai Siphon.
This presentation will review the unique set of constraints and hydraulic design challenges presented by each of the siphons and discuss the different strategies and tools used during design. Key topics will include: system design approach, sedimentation strategy, control structure design, steady state hydraulic modeling, air management review, and computational fluid dynamic modeling.
|8:00am - 9:30am
|Session 15A: Wastewater Process
Session Chair: Rick Kelly, Brown and Caldwell;
8:00am - 8:45am
Adaptive Facility Plan Tackles Uncertainty and Cold-Weather Ammonia Removal
A case study on the development and implementation of an adaptive facility plan for the City of Palmer, Alaska will be presented. The first phase of upgrades has been completed and includes conversion from aerobic lagoons to a moving bed bioreactor (MBBR) process for year-round cold-climate nitrification and compliance with ammonia limits. An adaptive facility plan was developed to manage uncertainty in flow projections driven by a controversial highway/bridge project and ranging from 130% to 250% of the current 0.6 mgd average daily flow rate. The adaptive phased facility plan reduced project costs and risk of stranded assets otherwise resulting from designing to unrealized growth conditions, resulting in saving over $30 million versus the original facility plan membrane bioreactor alternative. The MBBR was commissioned in July 2018, and nitrification was quickly established after startup. Results from the ongoing critical winter performance demonstration period (January – March 2019) will be presented. Minimum winter process temperatures are anticipated to be as low as 5°C. Operator insights gained in the transition from lagoons to MBBR technology will also be highlighted.
8:45am - 9:30am
Intensifying Nutrient Removal using Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor
1Black and Veatch, United States of America; 2SUEZ Treatment Solutions, Canada;
The Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor (MABR) is an innovative technology using counter-diffusional biofilm, wherein the substrate is supplied from the bulk liquid, but the electron acceptor is supplied from the attachment surface. Compared to co-diffusional biofilms, counter-diffusional biofilms can exhibit higher efficiencies of substrate and electron acceptor utilization.
While the concept and principles of an MABR process have been extensively evaluated at lab-scale for over three decades, only a limited number of pilot scale studies have been reported. With the objective to fill key knowledge gaps related to the application of MABRs in 'real-world' applications, our research investigates the performance of a pilot-scale MABR‑suspended growth (MABR‑SG) process, operated in a Modified Ludzack Ettinger (MLE) configuration, treating primary effluent at the Hayward Water Pollution Control Facility. The nitrification-denitrification performance under different hydraulic retention time (HRT), solid retention times (SRT) and influent carbon to ammonia-N (C/N) ratios are tested. High throughput 16S-rRNA amplicon sequencing was used to elucidate the microbial community shifts under different conditions.
Results indicate that effluent total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) concentrations of less than 15 mg‑N/L can be achieved at a suspended‑SRT (i.e., SRT calculated only using the mixed liquor inventory, waste sludge flow and effluent TSS) of approximately 4 days in the MABR‑SG process. Furthermore, TIN removal of 40-50% can be achieved even when operating the MABR‑SG process at a suspended‑SRT of less than 2 d. Such an intensified process holds values for those utilities considering cost-effective nutrient upgrades. Results from modeling a comparable suspended growth system suggests that the MABR biofilm accounts for a significant fraction of the nitrification at this low SRT.
Our presentation will provide details on MABR‑SG operation at a range of SRTs, highlighting performance and lessons learned. In addition, a comparison of the microbial communities of the biofilm and suspended growth mixed liquor will be described.
|8:00am - 9:30am
|Session 16A: Stormwater
Session Chair: Tarelle Osborn, Osborn Consulting, Inc.;
8:00am - 8:45am
Innovative Monitoring to Support Management Objectives in a Complex Subwatershed
Brown and Caldwell, United States of America;
The Ada County Highway District (ACHD) in Boise, Idaho manages a 58,000-acre Phase I MS4 permit area. One of the largest and most complex subwatersheds in the permit area is the 900-acre Americana subwatershed. If you can think of a stormwater management challenge, there's a good chance it is represented in this subwatershed, and outfall monitoring alone does not provide the resolution necessary to support management objectives in this highly dynamic, mixed use drainage area.
Water quality and quantity challenges in the subwatershed include groundwater infiltration, construction and redevelopment in the downtown area, aging infrastructure and high nutrient loading in the residential areas, irrigation spillbacks, and disposal of high groundwater from sumps, utility vaults, and footing drains. In 2018 ACHD began deploying level monitoring equipment in short-term installations throughout the subwatershed to help quantify flows from various subcatchments to better understand sources of wet weather and dry weather flows.
This presentation will discuss how pairing low-cost subcatchment monitoring with permit-required outfall monitoring has resulted in the following outcomes:
8:45am - 9:30am
Hawaiian Watershed Water Quality Modeling Using HSPF
AECOM, United States of America; ,
A privately owned lake in Hawaii that receives surface water runoff from the local jurisdiction has experienced water quality issues for many years. The owners of the lake have asked the jurisdiction to implement stormwater best management practices (BMPs) throughout the 3,350 acre watershed in order to reduce total suspended solids (TSS) and nutrients from entering the lake.
A multi-year water quality sampling effort was conducted to better understand the volume of material entering the lake and also identify potential sources. The sampling efforts provided potential calibration data related to flows and pollutants.
The Hydrological Simulation Program - FORTRAN (HSPF) was used to develop a model of the watershed using local soils and land use data. The HSPF model was calibrated to flows recorded at the water quality sampling sites. Following the hydrologic calibration, the HSPF model was calibrated for TSS and nutrients, using estimated target loadings and the measured water quality concentration data.
Using the calibrated model, annual pollutant loadings to the lake were estimated based on land use. Potential BMPs were identified to reduce the pollutant loadings. This effort also included estimating the implementation cost for the recommended BMPs.
This presentation will look at the challenges of hydrology and water quality calibration of an HSPF model in Hawaii, where watersheds are affected by micro-climates.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 09B: Leadership, Social Equity and Workforce Development: Workforce Development
Session Chair: Lara Kammereck, Carollo;
10:30am - 11:15am
Diversity and Inclusion: Playing the Long Game or Missing the Boat?
Diversity and inclusion are hot topics in nearly every organization these days. Boards and Management Teams track performance metrics, initiatives abound, and from local coffee shops to Fortune 500 gatherings, well-intentioned business leaders strive to make their workforce more diverse and their workplace more inviting. So why is progress so slow? Why do so many initiatives sparkle then fade?
Part of the problem is that many organizations fail to put "I before D." Though they mean well, organizations that focus on diversity first can fail to recognize the underlying organizational obstacles that can hinder their success or affect their ability to recruit and retain employees across a broad spectrum of backgrounds, experiences, and identities. By focusing on the outcomes they want to achieve, they fail to fully assess, understand, or acknowledge the problem in their organization. Focusing first on inclusivity helps to remove organizational barriers and promote respect as a core value.
Many of the barriers to inclusion are so ingrained in our lives, our vocabulary, and our communities that we don't realize when we exclude people – and, conversely, how easily we can make small adjustments that have a big impact. This presentation will examine how to avoid situations that can hamper Diversity and Inclusion efforts, and how "Leading with I" can create an environment where all people are comfortable and welcomed, and diversity is celebrated for its ability to foster unique, productive, and innovative teams.
11:15am - 12:00pm
PNCWA InFLOW Program
Isle Utilities, United States of America;
PNCWA will be launching the first iteration of the InFLOW (Introducing Future Leaders of Water) Program at the PNCWA Conference in 2019. The purpose of this program is to engage with underrepresented segments of our communities and the water and wastewater sector, in the form of a sponsorship to attend the PNCWA Annual Conference. If time allows, and it suits the audience, I'd like to suggest that the Program Committee carves out one or two time slots for the participants to present on school research projects or other relevant topics.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 10B: Wastewater 101: Solids Treatment
Session Chair: Matt Hewitt, West Yost;
10:30am - 11:15am
Squeezing the Most Out of Your Decision: A Suppliers Unbiased Approach for Selection of Dewatering Equipment
ANDRITZ Separation, United States of America;
Over 7,000,000 dry tons of biosolids have to be treated every year in the United States. Selection of the optimum dewatering equipment is important for every facility. The type of equipment can be dependent upon multiple factors including: plant size, disposal of the dewatered biosolids, money (capital costs / operating costs), area or footprint available, and others. This presentation will provide a guide for consultant engineers, owners and contractors for evaluating biosolids dewatering options.
The centrifuge, belt filter press and screw press operation will be explained. Next the pros and cons of each equipment will be presented including the major points of selection; dryness, polymer consumption, capture rate, footprint, throughput capacity etc. Then the dewatering parameters of different sludge types such as anaerobically digested sludge and waste activated sludge will also be presented in regards to each dewatering equipment. These numbers will be based upon numerous laboratory, pilot scale and installation performance results.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Polymer 101: Chemistry, Handling, Dilution Water, and Optimization
UGSI Solutions, Inc., United States of America;
Coagulation or flocculation is an essential stage in many solid-liquid separation processes of municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants. The aggregation of particles into larger and easily removable forms is necessary for efficient separation by sedimentation, filtration, or dewatering.
History of coagulant and flocculant in water and wastewater treatment is briefly illustrated. Since the chemistry of coagulant and flocculant is very different, the mechanism of coagulation and flocculation is also fundamentally different. Three types of polymers are discussed in regards to physical form, molecular weight, charge density, and size distribution. Proper way of handling and storage of dry or emulsion polymer is reviewed as well as the shelf-life of neat polymer and diluted polymer solution.
Quality of dilution water has tremendous impact on the efficiency of polymer solution. Hardness representing a major portion of the ionic strength of dilution water plays an important role in polymer activation. Considering the increasing trend of utilizing reclaimed water for polymer mixing at wastewater treatment plants, chlorine level of dilution water is to be maintained below 3 mg/L. When reclaimed water is used, aging of polymer solution must be carefully evaluated. Chlorine, suspended solids, and dissolved ions included in reclaimed water are reacting with polymer and resulting in degraded polymer solution during aging.
Preparing efficient polymer solution is one of several key components for successful solid-liquid separation. Due to its unique property of polymer, polymer make-down requires well established scientific understanding. It includes the concept of two-stage mixing; very high energy mixing to prevent fisheye formation at initial mixing stage, followed by low energy mixing to minimize damaging polymer chains. Two-step dilution and adequate residence time are also required to achieve fully extended molecular structure of polymer in solution. Various publications and product brochures by polymer manufacturers are also reviewed and presented.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 11B: Utility Management
Session Chair: Hunter Bennett-Daggett, Tetra Tech;
10:30am - 11:15am
How Lean Can You Go? – Alternatives Analysis for $60M Project in 18 Months
1King County; 2Brown and Caldwell; ,
King County (County) determined that their Coal Creek Trunk Sewer currently only has a five-year level of service and that the system will be 11 MGD over capacity by 2060. The sewer runs through a wooded, prized park in the City of Bellevue, and along a salmon bearing stream. What are the options for providing the required capacity? The County has spent millions of dollars over a two- to three-year options analysis phase to answer this question for other projects.
To better serve their rate payers, the County implemented a new planning process to expedite time and reduce cost of alternatives analysis. This new process, called Lean, is a County-wide initiative to solve problems, address issues, and deliver more value to their customers efficiently. Using Lean, the project team gathered existing information from desktop studies, including investigating environmental conditions, geotechnical data, cultural resources, and topography. Subject matter experts developed reports on each of their subjects, presented concerns to the team, and identified data gaps. 32 plausible alternatives were developed, along with a matrix to compare the alternatives with a simple ranking system of easy, medium, or hard. The three alternatives with the most "easy" rankings were selected for further analysis.
Embracing Lean methodology, these alternatives were investigated sufficiently to understand the benefits and challenges of each, but not to the traditional level of detail. At a second workshop a trenchless option was identified as the preferred alternative. This alternative had been developed assuming horizontal direction drilling (HDD) technology based on desktop study information and preliminary alignment concepts. The Lean process identified an alternative and some high-risk unknowns but left the details, including technology selection and alignment, open for refinement.
In the design phase for the trenchless alternative, the initial HDD concept was further investigated. Concerns arose over the risks of HDD not meeting the required line and grade. Embracing the Lean method once again, the project team nimbly changed course to Direct Pipe™ method as the trenchless technology. The selection process was complete in about half the time and at half the price of previous similar projects.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Spanning Planning and Project Management
City of Boise Public Works, United States of America; ,
The City of Boise is embarking on a decade or more of significant capital projects at its Lander Street Water Renewal Facility. The Lander Street WRF was built in the early 1950s, predating the Clean Water Act. As the facility aged, the City completed a business case evaluation that determined reinvesting in the Lander Street WRF was more cost-effective than consolidating treatment at the City's West Boise WRF. As a result, the Lander Street Program team needed to plan significant capital projects to repair or rebuild existing plant infrastructure while maintaining plant operations. We will talk about the challenges we faced in planning this work, managing parallel planning and project delivery at the facility, and how we maintained close alignment with the rest of the utility's planning efforts. We will also present our lessons learned, the improvements we made to our business processes, how we used business case evaluations to make project decisions, and changes we made to our project management style.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 12B: Planning, Resiliency, Climate Science: Planning
Session Chair: Susan Schlangen, Water Systems Consulting;
10:30am - 11:15am
A Comprehensive Planning Approach to Cost Effectiveness Analysis (Conveyance, Treatment, & I/I Reduction)
1Jacobs; 2Clackamas County Water Environmental Service; ,
Many utilities face decisions on capital and O&M expenditures related to treatment capacity upgrades, trunk sewer and pump station condition and capacity improvements, and I&I reduction improvements. Critical questions for decision makers include:
What should the target I&I reduction and timing be to offset or delay conveyance and treatment costs?
Where do I&I reduction costs offset potential growth-related expenditures?
What are the impacts of system I&I degradation and remaining useful life of infrastructure?
How does a comprehensive program encompassing treatment, conveyance, and I&I reduction affect decision on rates?
What opportunities exist to implement, incentivize, and accelerate I&I reduction?
This presentation will focus on recent efforts in Clackamas County to evaluate I&I by sub-basin and compare capital and O&M costs encompassing conveyance, treatment, and I&I reduction improvements. The analysis utilized hydraulic modeling and condition and age assessments to populate a cost effectiveness model. Statistical analysis was used to evaluate system risk and infrastructure degradation. 40 sub-basins were sequential tested for three I&I reduction levels and five timeframes to develop cost effectiveness curves. These curves were used to select an optimal target reduction and timeframe for implementation. The I&I cost effectiveness analysis is being used to inform a capital improvement program and promote I&I reduction in contributing communities.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Balancing Wastewater Collection System and Treatment Plant Investments in Sandy, Oregon
1Murraysmith, Inc.; 2City of Sandy, Oregon; , ,
As one of the top 5 fastest growing communities in Oregon, the City of Sandy is facing the difficult challenge of expanding the City's wastewater system to provide for growth while maintaining an aging wastewater collection system subject to high rainfall derived inflow and infiltration (RDII). In the face of compliance issues at the City's wastewater treatment plant and a mutual agreement and order (MAO) with Oregon DEQ, the City turned to Murraysmith to assist in the preparation of a comprehensive Wastewater System Facilities Plan (WSFP) to provide a roadmap for investments in the City's wastewater system over the next 20 years as the City population doubles.
At the heart of Murraysmith's wastewater system planning approach is a focus on balanced investments in wastewater treatment and collections, looking at a series of alternatives ranging for full collection system rehabilitation and replacement to a "pump and treat" scenario primarily focused on treatment capacity upgrades. Ultimately, an optimized approach balancing collection system rehabilitation to reduce RDII coupled with cost-effective wastewater treatment plant upgrades was selected by the City for implementation.
The presentation will focus on the collection system modeling approach and development of rehabilitation scenarios, wastewater treatment plant expansion options for those scenarios and the phasing of recommended upgrades to help reduce impacts of the recommended plan on community ratepayers to the maximum extent possible.
An overview of the recommended plan will be provided including full rehabilitation of wastewater collection system mains and laterals in the City's two largest sewersheds, construction of a new satellite MBR treatment facility with diversion pump station, new discharge to the Sandy River and continued utilization and rehabilitation of the City's existing wastewater treatment plant.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 13B: Wastewater Process: Solids Treatment
Session Chair: Mark Cullington, Kennedy/Jenks Consultants;
10:30am - 11:15am
Presentation is Canceled
Veolia Water Technologies/Kruger, United States of America;
A full-scale sludge liquor treatment using MBBR technology has proven to be an efficient way to treat nitrogen in existing volumes. In 2011, the former sludge liquor treatment (SBR) was retrofitted to an ANITA Mox process, using autotrophic N-removal through anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox). In Nov. 2014, a thermal hydrolysis process (THP) upstream of the existing digesters was installed, creating a higher strength sludge liquor. Warm dilution water was added prior to sludge liquor treatment to minimize inhibitory effects of COD compounds generated in the thermal hydrolysis process.
In order to improve the stability of the system, an Integrated Fixed-Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) ANITA Mox configuration, requiring recycling of settled activated sludge, was implemented in May 2018. Prior to installation of the THP system, the ANITA Mox system at Sundets WWTP was receiving an average ammonia nitrogen load of 142 kg/d. After the installation of the THP process, the average ammonia nitrogen load increased to 156 kg/d, and after implementing the IFAS the average load has been 195 kg/d. Average ammonia concentration in the digesters has doubled - from about 800 mg/l prior to THP to about 1600 mg/l after four years of operation and an increased degree of digestion (from 45 to 58%). Energy consumption has decreased from 2 to <1 kWh/kg N-removed and early measurement indicate low emissions of N2O (0,75% of N-removed).
This paper will present data from each of the three stages that the ANITA Mox system at Sundets WWTP has operated under and provide lessons learned from operation of an IFAS ANITA Mox following a high strength THP sludge liquor. Results indicate that the IFAS configuration will be a more stable treatment option and the plant is able to treat all the current sludge liquor water with less dilution water and retained efficiency.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Heating Primary Sludge for Increased Volatile Fatty Acid Production at Short SRT
1Clean Water Services; 2Kennedy/Jenks Consultants;
The Durham Treatment Facility has been practicing biological phosphorus removal (BPR) for over two decades. The facility relies on primary sludge fermentation to augment influent Volatile Fatty Acids (VFA) and support BPR. The fermentation system currently needs expansion because the solid residence time (SRT) available is too low to provide adequate VFA production when wastewater temperatures are low. A capital project addressing this issue is scheduled for completion in 2022. As an interim solution, primary sludge heating to increase cold weather VFA production will come online in March 2019.
The heat exchanger is designed to increase the temperature of sludge feeding the fermentation process by 5°C. Full-scale data show VFA production approximately doubles as the influent temperature increases from 15 to 20°C. Bench-scale testing shows that the degree of fermentation that has already occurred in the collection system strongly influences the increase in VFA production with a 5°C temperature change. Pre-fermentation appears to decrease the additional VFA production achieved with sludge heating. Efforts to validate the bench-scale observations with activated sludge models have highlighted limitations in the models' ability to predict the additional VFA production expected with sludge heating. Therefore, efforts to understand model limitations are ongoing.
This presentation will review the 2019 full-scale operational data demonstrating the benefit of primary sludge heating. Bench-scale testing results from 2019 and modelling efforts will also be summarized, providing a comparison of laboratory, full scale, and modeling data. The results have a significant impact on the upcoming fermentation expansion design because the design SRT is a strong function of the fermentation temperature. Full-scale observations coupled with bench scale testing results and modelling efforts will provide a more robust determination of what SRT should be used for design, which ultimately determines the extent of infrastructure investment needed for fermentation.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 14B: Collection, Pump Stations, and Conveyance
Session Chair: Adam Crafts, Murraysmith;
10:30am - 11:15am
Cured-in-Place Pipe: - Planning for the Long Haul
1City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services; 2Murraysmith; 3C&L Water Solutions; , firstname.lastname@example.com,
Cured-in-placed pipe (CIPP) has been an established pipe renewal technology for decades. The City of Portland's Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) has embraced the technology for use in numerous projects, including the Large Scale Sewer Rehabilitation Program. However, to some at BES, CIPP carries the stigma of a short-term fix, with no clear consensus on longevity or design-life. Currently, BES is operating under the philosophy that CIPP lasts 60 years, then requires replacement, whereas the design life of new pipe, such as PVC, lasts 120 years. When adopting an asset management approach that looks at life cycle costs, under the current BES design life assumptions, CIPP may not always be the most cost-effective solution.
But what if CIPP can be engineered to last well beyond the 60 years? How would BES approach rehabilitation if CIPP proved to be a viable technology for the long haul, particularly as the City looks to rehabilitate sewers in congested downtown streets or difficult-to-access hills on the west side?
This presentation is a collaboration between the City of Portland, one of the City's consulting engineers, and a CIPP contractor to share data and emphasize quality control. The presentation will focus on the CIPP design equations used in North America (ASTM F1216, which are currently the most conservative in the world), and recent research by other municipalities with decades of CIPP experience has shown next to no material property degradation over time. Some aspects of flexible pipe design will be discussed.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Expedited Design for Emergency Sewer Forcemain Replacement Under the Shilshole Bay
1Murraysmith; 2Osborn Consulting, Inc; ,
In a world of aging infrastructure, emergency utility repairs are becoming more frequent. Public agencies and their consultant teams must rely on innovation and collaboration to successfully design and deliver emergency repair and replacement projects.
When Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) discovered a pipe break in a 4.5 Million Gallons per Day (MGD) capacity sewage forcemain, they moved quickly and strategically with their consultant team to design and implement an expedited solution. The pipe break in the forcemain, which conveys combined sewage and stormwater from the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle to the West Point Wastewater Treatment Plant, was located beneath the Shilshole Waterway near the Ballard Locks. A temporary sewage bypass system was quickly installed, but with a dry weather capacity of only 1.0 MGD, a permanent solution was necessary and required with a tight schedule to replace approximately 1,200 feet of forcemain.
The forcemain and vault designs were driven by the expedited emergency schedule, but focused on minimizing the project's impact on residents. This was a significant challenge for the project as construction would impact an arterial, regional bike trail (the Burke-Gilman Trail) as well as active railroads, both with highly engaged stakeholders.
SPU and the consultant team were in constant communication throughout the design, meeting weekly to address challenges such as limiting disruption to the trail and other major design elements, while operating with a focus on streamlining processes at every opportunity. Through this effort, the team implemented an innovative solution to install the system while minimizing impacts to the trail and rails and developed creative sequencing in order to minimize system shutdown during construction.
The Pump Station 43 emergency repair exemplifies best practices for collaborative, multi-company design teams that ensure emergency utility repair projects are safely and successfully delivered while maintaining high quality and cost-effective solutions.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 15B: Wastewater Process
Session Chair: Rick Kelly, Brown and Caldwell;
10:30am - 11:15am
Nitrification Resilience Enhanced Under Dynamic Loading Using MABR
SUEZ Water Technologies & Solutions, Canada;
The membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR) is an innovative technology for activated sludge plant upgrades that employs a gas permeable media to deliver oxygen to a biofilm. Experience shows the process can achieve oxygen transfer rates of 8 to 12 g/m2/d at field oxygen transfer efficiencies of 30 to 60 percent. Due to the unique "counter-diffusional" properties of the MABR biofilm, oxygen transfer is primarily directed to nitrification when the MABR is located at the upstream end of an activated sludge bioreactor. In contrast, conventional "co-diffusional" biofilms typically require removal of BOD before a nitrifying biofilm can be established.
One of the interesting aspects of MABR is that exhaust gas is captured and can be measured using an on-line O2 sensor. When plotted against online measurements of ammonia, the trends in "exhaust O2" show kinetics that are primarly ammonia-limited: oxygen transfer is highest when ammonia is high and lowest when ammonia is low. What this means is that the MABR biofilm has a built-in form of ammonia based aeration control (ABAC). This provides a natural degree of load balancing: the biofilm removes less ammonia when the process is underloaded and more ammonia when the downstream mixed liquor would otherwise be overloaded.
To illustrate this, field data from a full-scale activated sludge plant retrofit with ZeeLung cassettes (MABR/AS) will be presented to demonstrate a ±30% variation in oxygen transfer and nitrification in the biofilm in response to a ±40% loading variation. The full paper will explore the benefits of this natural load balancing to limit diurnal breakthrough of ammonia in the final effluent of a MABR/AS process. Combined with field data, process model simulation results will be presented to show performance under different stress conditions of the activated sludge process with and without MABR cassettes. Optimal balancing of nitrification in the biofilm and mixed liquor will be discussed in the context of intensifying process loading while maintaining resilience to dynamic loading events.
11:15am - 12:00pm
The Role of Solids Retention Time on the Fate of Trace Organic Compounds and Antibiotic Resistance
1Carollo Engineers, Inc.; 2University of Nevada, Las Vegas;
Solids retention time (SRT) is one of the most important factors in designing and operating activated sludge systems for biological wastewater treatment. In particular, longer SRTs have shown to alter the structure and function of the microbial community, thereby more efficiently treating bulk and trace organics, completing nutrient removal, and preventing membrane fouling. However, longer SRTs also contribute to the proliferation of antibiotic resistance (AR), which is now considered a contaminant of emerging concern (CEC) that poses a threat to public health. This study's main goal was to characterize the effect of varying SRTs on the fate of trace organic compounds (TOrCs) and AR in the biological wastewater treatment. To monitor TOrCs concentrations and AR as a function of SRT, four parallel, laboratory-scale sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were designed to mimic activated sludge systems. The acrylic SBRs were initially seeded with return activated sludge (RAS) and fed with primary effluent from a full-scale municipal wastewater treatment plant. In the experiment, SRTs of 2 days, 7 days (in duplicate), and 20 days were targeted, while hydraulic retention time was held constant at 6.5 hours. A suite of indicator TOrCs was then selected and quantified by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Finally, bacteria resistant to ampicillin, tetracycline, trimethoprim, sulfamethoxazole, and vancomycin were isolated using the spread plate technique and monitored before and after each SBR. Results demonstrated that longer SRTs significantly improved effluent water quality and TOrC removal, but often increased the relative prevalence of antibiotic resistance.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 16B: Stormwater
Session Chair: Tarelle Osborn, Osborn Consulting, Inc.;
10:30am - 11:15am
Pavement That Can Clean Water
City of Gresham, United States of America;
Pervious pavement allows rain water to soak through it rather than running off. This type of pavement is known to reduce polluted stormwater runoff going to urban streams by infiltrating water into the soil below. But can it have benefits in areas where the soil drains too slowly for infiltration? We studied water quality and road conditions from test sections of pervious pavement on a large arterial road in Gresham, Oregon that is on top of slowly draining soil. We compared road sections of: A) conventional asphalt, B) 8"-think pervious pavement with an underdrain, and C) 3"-think pervious pavement on top of conventional asphalt. We found that runoff from both types of pervious pavement had lower levels of several pollutants of concern than runoff from conventional asphalt, including sediment, bacteria, nutrients, and heavy metals. The pollutant reduction of the pervious pavement was found to be similar to, or even higher than, reductions from other stormwater management practices in Gresham. Additionally, we noted that both types of pervious pavement had fewer potholes, less road spray, and less road noise than the conventional asphalt. This study indicates that pervious pavement can have multiple benefits to urban stream water quality as well as local road conditions, even when the soil below it drains too slowly for infiltration.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Two City Departments and College Come Together for a Win-Win-Win Project
Murraysmith, Inc., United States of America;
Basement and street flooding have been a significant problem as a result of Everett's 100+ year old combined sewer system. The City has been systematically addressing the problem with several construction projects in recent years. Being adjacent to the City's Legion Memorial Golf Course, a neighbourhood in Northwest Everett had the unique opportunity to combine the City's sewer/stormwater infrastructure needs with the renovation of a portion of the City-owned golf course.
A preliminary study of the area confirmed the ability to separate the stormwater system and convey flows to detention ponds located in the golf course. A golf course architect was brought onto the design team and the project proceeded, which included four new holes and introduction of a pond network on the course to improve playability and aesthetics of the course. Water now strategically comes into play on three of the four new holes and the three new ponds serve as stormwater detention ponds, capturing up to 5.4 acres feet of runoff.
Currently, control structures release runoff back into the combined sewer system. Future phases of the project are anticipated and could include additional separation projects at Everett Community College, and ponds within the golf course, utilizing stormwater for course irrigation and diversion to a stormwater outfall.
This presentation will discuss the origins of the project, how the City's Utility and Parks department came together to define a win-win project that takes maximum advantage to the City's resources and how the project was implemented, which required input from the golf community, the neighbourhood and the adjacent Everett Community College.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 17A: Leadership, Social Equity and Workforce Development: Social Equity
Session Chair: Katie Dillon, HDR;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Concrete Steps in the Employee Hiring Process to Diversify Your Workforce
Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle, WA; ,
Many utilities struggle to hire and retain people of color, especially in planning and technical-tract jobs. While factors like marketplace, cost of living, salary scales, and a limited pool of 'qualified' candidates can play critical roles in who ends up working at your utility, there are steps one can take to diversify the workforce. Staff at Seattle Public Utilities have begun to proactively address this issue, and this workshop will consist of a presentation and an interactive exercise so that attendees walk away with actions they can take to begin addressing this issue. Workshop highlights include:
As a goal we hope to inspire workshop attendees to take actionable steps within their hiring processes so that more people of color are drawn into the full array of drainage and waste water professions.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Osborn Consulting: A Case Study for Diversity Inclusion Strategies
Osborn Consulting, Inc.;
Setting and achieving inclusion goals on public works projects is a challenge. Our industry's commitment to diversity and inclusion has led to increasingly collaborative and creative teams combining varied perspectives and backgrounds in order to conceive, design, and construct innovative projects.
In 2010, Osborn Consulting, a women-owned, Seattle-area, civil engineering small business, was comprised of four engineers. Seattle Public Utilities' (SPU) WMBE Program allowed for new opportunities to market their services to prime consultants who were now required to include WMBE firms on their project teams. Using the program as a stepping stone to demonstrate the firm's qualifications to SPU and prime consultants, Osborn Consulting has found success in developing an internal business model of inclusion and diversity that has impacted the strategic growth of the firm since 2010 to a firm of over 40 team members today.
Osborn Consulting's story of growth alongside the growing, successful WMBE program at SPU highlights the success of agencies with an entrenched understanding of the value that diversity provides. SPU and Osborn Consulting recognize inclusion goals as a way to stimulate creative solutions and evaluate designs from unique perspectives; a commitment to inclusion that goes beyond a plan in a proposal and supports overall commitment to finding the best solutions.
This presentation will provide tangible ways that public agencies and consultant firms can integrate inclusion strategies into their business models and day-to-day operations. The unique history of Osborn Consulting and how WMBE inclusion has played a key role in the firm's success over the last 15 years serves as a case study for the value of diversity and inclusion in our industry.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 18A: Wastewater 101: Energy and Mixing
Session Chair: Tom Giese, BHC Consultants;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Key Factors that Affect Chemical Mixing in Water and Wastewater Treatment Facilities
Carollo Engineers, United States of America;
Many chemicals are commonly used in water and wastewater treatment, including chlorine, caustic, ammonia, ferric chloride, hydrogen peroxide, and many others. Monitoring needs to occur after chemical addition to ensure chemicals are completely mixed for proper dose pacing. Rapid mixing is essential to maximize chemicals usage efficiency and reaction time while minimizing facility sizes. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling has been shown as an ideal tool for providing comprehensive information on chemical mixing systems, as well as useful in optimizing designs.
This presentation will review the important factors that affect chemical mixing through several project case studies. Key findings include:
1) Injection devices (such as nozzles) and diffuser size can significantly affect mixing efficiency, and the design should be selected based on the required complete mixing distance and available pumping head;
2) Injection location is critical. Mixing may be quite different depending on where chemicals are injected with respect to flow streams and fittings;
3) Additional mixers increase mixing efficiency. With installing mechanical or static mixer, mixing can be improved dramatically. However additional mixer should be used with caution since mechanical mixer consumes energy and static mixer increases head loss, and;
4) The ratio of injection flow rate to main stream flow rate affects mixing. An optimum ratio may exist to maximize mixing efficiency.
The case studies and findings from this presentation will provide insights into chemical feeding system for designers.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Inertia, Incentives, & Indifference: Stories from the Frontlines of Energy Efficiency
Cascade Energy; ,
Let's face it: addressing energy efficiency in capital projects is kind of like the diet we all think we should start in January but often don't get around to until September – just in time to give up during the holidays! It's difficult; it's not fun; it's hard to see the impact. It's often not asked for or appreciated.
We know that municipal infrastructure is built to meet the needs of our communities for decades into the future. We rely on conservative projections of flows and loads, coupled with safety factors and provisions for load peaks, storm flows, maintenance and outages. All this while staying within the budget provided by our funders who ultimately seem most concerned with the price included in the lowest, responsive bid. These factors often lead to systems which can meet the needs of the worst-case scenarios yet can't operate efficiently at the lowest flows or loadings.
For the past decade, we've worked on behalf of regional electric utilities to help bridge the gap between energy conservation programs and our industry. We've learned a few things along the way, and we'd like to share them with you. Our presentation will show how to incorporate efficiency into every decision and while taking advantage of the funding and assistance that utility programs provide. We'll share some project examples from our region to illustrate how relatively small changes can create big savings. And, we'll share some of the things we look for when we perform efficiency reviews at various stages of design.
As we progress, we will present an overview of energy conservation programs in the Pacific Northwest including how capital project incentive programs typically work, who to talk to about a project, the application process, cost effectiveness, and measurement and verification of savings.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 19A: Utility Management:: Performance Contracting
Session Chair: Ann Hajnosz, Harris & Associates;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Shifting Project Risk Through Performance Contracting at Edmonds WWTP
1Ameresco, Inc.; 2City of Edmonds, WA; 3BHC Consultants, LLC; 4Washington State Department of Enterprise Services; , , ,
The ever-increasing pressure on wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) to sustainably improve operations while controlling costs, requires operators to investigate technological improvements and innovative design to update facilities and operations. Harnessing the latest innovations and best available technology to meet specific needs often requires long term planning, difficult investment decisions and increased exposure to various forms of risk. This elevated risk has local governments, utilities, and WWTPs looking for alternative contracting methods to achieve their goals while controlling exposure to risk.
This session will compare the risk, and associated issues, across a spectrum of alternative contracting pathways, including Energy Savings Performance Contracting (ESPC). ESPC is a project development pathway that guarantees the resource and energy savings; project performance; and maximum costs for implementation. The Energy Services Company (ESCO) carries the risk of the project outcome, mitigating risk to the plant Owner. While the ESPC/ESCO pathway in enabled across the country, contracting requirements differ from state to state. This proven implementation method is prescribed through legislation and offers financing structures not available through other alternative contracting methods.
The project team will discuss why the City of Edmonds selected performance contracting to complete three phases of plant upgrades, bridging the gap between risk and effective energy-centric project delivery. The session will be hosted by Edmonds WWTP Manager, Pamela Randolph; Wastewater Engineer with BHC Consultants, Greg Mockos; Department of Enterprise Services, Project Manager, Butch Boles; and Ameresco Account Executive, Murray Greenwood. With a clear explanation of the ESPC pathway, the project team will discuss their perspective on the challenges faced; the collaborative solutions developed; and the project outcomes the team was able to achieve in Edmonds.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Pathway to Sustainability – Performance Contracting and Collaborative Problem-Solving Leads to Innovative Resource Recovery
1Ameresco, Inc.,; 2City of Edmonds, WA; 3BHC Consultants, LLC; 4Washington State Department of Enterprise Services; , , ,
In the first session, the project team discussed risk factors across a range of alternate contracting vehicles and explained why the ESPC approach was the best pathway for the City of Edmonds. In this session, we will delve into these energy efficiency case studies, focusing on the challenges that arose and how the ESPC approach enabled collaborative solutions to be developed. We will also look at the project outcomes, and how these projects established Edmonds' Pathway to Sustainability.
Before setting out on a Pathway to Sustainability, this team created a long-term vision, and established a phased strategy for plant improvements. The phases focused on treatment plant processes with aged or inefficient equipment needing replacement. The goal was to achieve incremental improvements that would eventually enable the City to either replace the Sanitary Sewage Sludge Incinerator or find an alternative method of treatment that recovers energy.
The panel will share the goals, challenges and accomplishments of three completed ESPC projects and discuss how the projects paved the way for their future Resource Recovery project. We will share the savings achieved to date and future savings anticipated with the completion of our innovative Carbon Recovery project. This will be the first in the Northwest wastewater treatment industry to implement pyrolysis technology for the processing of wastewater biosolids.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 20A: Collection, Pump Stations and Conveyance: Collections
Session Chair: Tyson Schlect, HDR;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Wastewater Collection System Capacity Analysis for Future Planning
1Aqualyze, Inc.; 2City of Seattle, Seattle Public Utilities; , ,
Wastewater system planning requires detailed analysis of existing infrastructure using the best available tools. Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) currently serves a population of over 730,000 that is expected to grow 10% to roughly 800,000 by the year 2035. The median age of the collection system is approximately 80 years. Given the projected growth, lack of hydraulic capacity may lead to sanitary sewer overflows (SSO) during peak wet-weather conditions.
Aqualyze, Inc. was the lead consultant for SPU's Wastewater System Analysis (WWSA) project to evaluate the existing infrastructure for hydraulic capacity limitations across the service area including over 40,000 pipes (1,420 miles), using the latest dynamic hydraulic/hydrologic (H/H) model in PCSWMM. This paper presents a robust methodology used to identify capacity constrained pipes across the system.
A thoroughly constructed and calibrated H/H model provides pipe surcharging and flooded maintenance hole (MH) locations anywhere in the system. However, a simple model run presents only part of the problem and requires further analysis. The methodology used for the WWSA project involved conducting iterative model runs to identify potential downstream impacts by upsizing initially surcharged pipes and letting unrestricted flows reach the downstream system to identify potential future capacity issues. An additional unrestricted flow scenario was created such that by the end of the system-wide analysis the unrestricted peak flow for every gravity pipe in the system was established.
Using the unrestricted peak flow and the existing hydraulic capacity of the pipe (using Manning's equation at maximum flow), all pipes with a Qpeak/Qcapacity ratio greater than 1 were flagged as under capacity. This approach not only identified downstream pipes that could potentially be under capacity, but also eliminated previously surcharged upstream pipes that had adequate capacity but were surcharged due to downstream restrictions. Under-sized pipes were upsized and costed across the system.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Hazelwood Sewer Upgrade: Alternatives Analysis and Selecting a Construction Method
RH2 Engineering, United States of America;
The City of Oregon City identified the need to replace and upsize portions of approximately 3,000 linear feet of sanitary sewer to relieve surcharging and flooding in Warner-Parrot Road and the Hazelwood Drive area located south of downtown. During storm events in 2009, five properties had experienced basement flooding, and two of these same properties had flooding again during storm events in 2012. In 2014, the City determined that there was a need to adopt an ordinance for a moratorium on land development and building permit approval where the sanitary sewer system was flow constrained. Replacement of the sewer main downstream of the affected area was complicated by its location within the backyards of several homes with extremely limited access, as well as its proximity to Coffee Creek, which runs parallel and immediately adjacent to the sewer main in many sections.
In order to determine the best path forward, conceptual design alternatives were developed and analyzed. These alternatives included:
Based on the analysis, which involved evaluation of costs, maintenance, constructability, and impacts to the community, the selected alternative for design rerouted the sewer into the Hazelwood Drive ROW with a combination of open-cut construction and horizontal directional drilling (HDD) methods. HDD was selected for a segment of sewer that would have involved deep excavations in solid basalt.
This presentation will discuss the project constraints and considerations involved in the selection of a preferred alternative, as well as lessons learned during design and construction of the project.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 21A: Regulatory Challenges
Session Chair: Kyle Pettibone, RH2;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
A Study To Better Understand The Factors Affecting Eutrophication In The Tualatin River and Update the TMDL
Clean Water Services, United States of America;
The Tualatin River in Oregon was one of the first watersheds in the country to receive a TMDL in 1988. Among other things, this TMDL addressed phosphorus
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Copper Removal In Full-Scale Constructed Surface Wetlands And Pilot Subsurface Reactors
Clean Water Services;
The Forest Grove Wastewater Treatment Facility (WWTF) is a secondary treatment facility that discharges to the Tualatin River. The facility includes a post-secondary Natural Treatment System (NTS) designed for dry-season operation, consisting of 54 acres of surface-flow wetlands that provide additional treatment prior to discharge. The combination of conventional secondary treatment followed by the NTS at the Forest Grove facility is very effective at reducing nutrients (phosphorus, ammonia, nitrates) and temperature. Copper is one of the parameters of concern in the discharge from the Forest Grove facility. Target discharge levels for copper vary seasonally and may require the WWTF to treat to concentrations as low as 4.5 µg/L dissolved copper. Early analysis suggested that an additional treatment process might be necessary to meet target discharge copper concentrations. Since the NTS began operation in May 2017, monitoring has found that the wetlands are also effective at reducing copper concentrations. Clean Water Services (CWS) has conducted regular sampling to evaluate the degree of copper removal achieved with existing WWTF and NTS infrastructure. Concurrently, CWS has conducted a number of pilot studies to explore the copper removal capabilities of horizontal-flow subsurface reactors, demonstrating high percent removals at relatively short hydraulic retention times. This presentation will summarize results of WWTF and NTS monitoring and pilot testing with various media at a range of flowrates and effluent conditions.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 22A: Facility Operations and Maintenance: Process Optimization
Session Chair: Doug Berschauer, Parametrix;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Simulating Advanced Controls using Integrated Modeling
Jacobs, United States of America;
Advanced control schemes such as Ammonia-based aeration control (ABAC) or Ammonia-Over-Nitrate (AVN) has become increasingly recommended options for plants who want to save energy and optimize nutrient removal. Testing and optimization of the control logic is critical in insuring the process is implemented successfully. Integrated modeling using hydraulics and process simulators provides an opportunity to pre-test the control logic, tune, and optimize prior to implementation. Communication between the two simulators starts with water quality and process parameters from the wastewater process model being passed to the dynamic simulation model to provide the necessary feedback information (DO, NH3-N, etc) for the advanced control strategies. The dynamic simulation model, with its ability to simulate hydraulics, instrumentation, controls, and equipment behaviors, predicts the resulting air flow rate which is passed back to the wastewater simulator. This enabled detailed control loops to be analyzed, control strategies to vetted, and optimized tuning parameters to be identified prior to implementation. This not only verifies the control strategy, but also aims to accelerate project startup by minimizing the post-tuning for functional acceptance testing.
This presentation will focus the discussion on how an integrated modelling approach using the wastewater process and dynamic simulation models was utilized to develop and verify operational strategies for the San Diego North City Water Reclamation Facility upgrade. Modelling approach will describe each of the two model programs, the construction of the associated models, and how the linkage was developed and integrated. Lastly, this presentation will discuss the results from the modeling efforts and lessons learned in respect to both the project itself as well as implications for the industry as whole with the desire to practically automate, decrease energy consumption, and accelerate project implementation from study to startup.
This integrated modelling work highlights how the gap between process design and control sysetm optimization can be mitigated prior to startup and commissioning.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Balancing Chloramination for DBP Control With Tight Effluent Ammonia Permit Limits
Clean Water Services, United States of America;
Disinfection byproducts (DBPs) are formed from the reaction of chlorine with organic compounds. Effluent characterization performed by Clean Water Services (CWS) as part of NPDES permit-required monitoring identified the presence of two DBPs - bromodichloromethane (BDCM) and chlorodibromomethane (CDBM) - in effluent from the Durham and Rock Creek Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facilities (AWTFs) during full nitrification. CWS is taking proactive action to address this issue, identifying chloramination as a strategy to mitigate DBP formation. Chloramines are formed by the reaction of ammonia with free chlorine therefore, low concentrations of ammonia are needed in the secondary effluent. However, CWS also operates under stringent ammonia limits during the summer months. This poses a challenge for chloramination, as DBP formation control, effluent ammonia, and disinfection efficiency all must be balanced in order to meet current ammonia limits and potential future DBP limits.
CWS evaluated the chloramination approach at the Durham AWTF in summer 2018. The goal was to determine if chloramination could achieve the operational target of 0.5 mg/L for BDCM and CDBM while maintaining the effluent ammonia below 1.5 mg/L N. Full scale testing showed that chloramination successfully reduced CDBM to below the operating target. BDCM was reduced by an order of magnitude, but the operating target of 0.5 mg/L was not achieved.
Further testing in summer 2019 will be focused on optimizing chlorine dosage and mixing in an effort to further reduce DBP formation potential and achieve the operational target. The fate of DBPs and ammonia through sand filtration, reaeration and bisulfite dechlorination will also be investigated. Ammonia-based aeration control is currently being optimized to bleed the needed ammonia from secondary treatment rather than removing it fully through nitrification and adding external ammonia for chloramination. This presentation will summarize the results of the summer 2019 testing.
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 23A: Wastewater Process
Session Chair: Miaomiao Zhang, Murraysmith;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
A case study on the Moorefield Wastewater Treatment Plant system upgrade with the MOB™ process
Nuvoda US, United States of America;
In 2013, a partnership between the Town of Moorefield, West Virginia and a local poultry factoryresulted in the construction of the 6.2 MGD Advanced Nutrient Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) to improve the region's discharge quality into the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.The state-of-the-art 5-stage biological treatment process currently treats a combination of industrial (90%) and municipal (10%) flow to meet the stringent discharge limits. Soon after start-up, the Moorefield WWTP encountered multiple issues caused by the waste flow from the poultry process. The variable industrial influent is high in nutrient concentration but low in BOD; this forced the WWTP to rely heavily on expensive chemicals to meet the discharge limits. Moreover, the sanitation chemicals from the industrial process caused several biological upsets in 2016, costing the Moorefield WWTP $200,000 to recover.
Faced with high operation cost and unpredictable effluent quality, the Town of Moorefield WWTP underwent a process upgrade using Nuvoda's MOBTM (Mobile Organic Biofilm) Process in March 2017. The MOB™ process is a novel and sustainable wastewater treatment process to improve settleability, increase treatment capacity and improve process stability. This process utilizes a highly renewable lignocellulosic material harvested from Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus) as a substratum for biofilm growth. The adsorptive Kenaf with high surface area is machined to approximately 0.5 mm in size, allowing them to act as media for fixed film and granular sludge growth. This hybrid media adaptively grows a stratified microbial community that facilitates robust and simultaneous biological nutrient (C, N, P) removal, and is free to circulate into the secondary clarifiers to improve settleability.
Comparing the data from April 2016 to February 2018, the Moorefield WWTP has seen 80% reduction in SRT, 87% reduction in SVI, 96% reduction in effluent TSS and no system upsets after the MOB™ process was installed. The successful upgrade with MOB™ has helped the Moorefield WWTP save at least 50% of total operation cost since March 2017.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
An Assessment of Operational Tools for Characterizing BPR Activity and Evaluating Process Health
Clean Water Services, United States of America; ,
Consistent and stable BPR is essential in meeting strict effluent limits and providing recoverable phosphorus after the dewatering process. The BPR process has been observed to operate stably over long periods of time, only to become upset during critical times of year. Determining key factors influencing BPR stability is important so that corrective measures that can be taken without relying on chemical phosphorus removal. However, useful data for BPR operations has been limited to effluent phosphate, along with grab or composite sampling for influent and effluent characteristics.
Clean Water Services (CWS) utilizes a number of characterization methods in an effort to better understand BPR process stability and predict upsets before they occur. These methods include sampling and nutrient profiles, in situ phosphate analyzers, bench testing to quantify BPR kinetics and stoichiometry, and sludge analysis for storage products (e.g. PHA and glycogen) and PAO and GAO populations (e.g. qPCR). This work provides an assessment of current BPR characterization methods, as well as results from bench testing, sludge sampling, and online measurements of phosphorus (P) uptake.
Key findings of this study:
|1:15pm - 2:45pm
|Session 24A: Operations and Maintenance
Session Chair: Yasaman Saghari, Stantec;
1:15pm - 2:00pm
Can You Please Hold It In For A Few Months?
City of Portland, Bureau of Environmental Services; , ,
The City of Portland's Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant is the largest plant in Oregon. With this comes a huge responsibility, and, sometimes, humbling lessons. In July 2018, plant operations realized things were amiss, where treatment performance degraded despite being in dry season. The culprit? Biosolids accumulation in the otherwise tranquil CBWTP's lagoons that had crept up and now threatened the performance of plant operations. Several factors contributed to the situation that was eventually raised to an emergency.
This presentation will focus on the extraordinary efforts and collaboration between operations, maintenance, engineering, and procurement to find the root cause of treatment plant performance issues and develop a path forward that would protect public and watershed health, providing a renewed appreciation of biosolids management and, most importantly, teamwork.
2:00pm - 2:45pm
Want a Successful Project - Start with O&M
Superior Engineering, LLC (WEF Representative), United States of America;
Resource Recovery is becoming the norm for water resource recovery facilities rather than the unique. Many different types of technology are being installed – some successfully and some not so successfully. This presentation will focus on why operation and maintenance (O&M) is so critical to consider first and throughout the process for resource recovery and other new types of technology rather than after the project has been designed.
Operators are a key resource for a project to be successful and this includes front-line operators as well as maintenance and applicable staff. The operator perspective are invaluable from the facilities operation, to safety, to determining what type of skill sets will be needed to operate and maintain the new facilities. While many projects include these team members their input may be too late, or the key people are not in the decision-making process.
A couple of simple considerations will help ensure that the installation, startup and operation go more efficiently and effectively. This presentation will also focus on several projects that had various levels of success and what would they have done differently. And as more than one operator told me – there is no perfect technology or equipment that will solve all the problems… but with team-work the project can be successful.
|3:00pm - 4:30pm
|Session 17B: Leadership, Social Equity and Workforce Development: Workforce Development
Session Chair: Katie Dillon, HDR;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
How do you Transfer 40 years of Outfall Design and Construction Expertise?
Jacobs, United States of America; ,
Treated effluent from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) is discharged into rivers, estuaries, and marine waters. Fortunately, outfall designs have improved since the early days of open pipes discharging from the shoreline. Today's designs include buried outfall pipelines with diffusers, multiple risers and duckbill check valve ports in order to improve mixing, avoid impacts to the river water quality, and comply with water quality standards under all flow scenarios. Design considerations for outfall construction projects includes challenging in-water work windows, tight permit requirements during construction, working from a barge on underwater construction, and diver-friendly design details.
This presentation features a senior engineer with over 40 years' experience in outfall design and construction and a young professional with a keen interest in learning from the best. This presentation will share how to work as a team to transfer experience and expertise from one generation to the next and feature two case studies of recently completed river outfall projects - one at Clackamas County Water Environment Services' Kellogg Creek WRRF and one at the City of Wilsonville's WWTP.
The Kellogg Creek WRRF Outfall Improvement included 167' of 48" buried outfall pipeline and a 120' diffuser with 7 ports, and was constructed during the in-water work window summer 2016. This improved outfall substantially improves dilutions to support elimination of ammonia limits in the NPDES permit. The outfall improvements design incorporated projected future effluent flows and chemical concentrations to enable the Kellogg Creek WRRF to comply with all Oregon water quality standards for decades.
The City of Wilsonville Outfall Replacement included 285' of 42" buried outfall pipeline and a 60' diffuser with 5 ports on vertical risers. The project originated with discovery in 2014 that the existing single port outfall was broken and leaking at the shoreline. A temporary outfall pipe was installed to repair the broken line until design and construction of a new multiport diffuser and outfall was completed in the summer of 2018. The replacement outfall design incorporated projected effluent flows and chemical concentrations to enable the Wilsonville WWTP to comply with all Oregon water quality standards for decades.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
STEPS to Improve Phosphorus Removal at the West Boise Water Renewal Facility
1HDR, United States of America; 2City of Boise, United States of America; ,
The City of Boise operates the West Boise Water Renewal Facility (WBWRF) which utilizes an enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) for phosphorus removal. In 2017, the City developed a Secondary Treatment Enhancement Project (STEP) intended to improve phosphorus removal at WBWRF. The WBWRF has the added challenge of dewatering biosolids from the Lander Street Water Renewal Facility and struvite harvesting of phosphorus. Side stream phosphorus sources provide challenges to the EBPR process. The City reviewed biological and chemical alternatives to augment their existing EBPR process and reduce effluent phosphorus and developed three viable alternatives to be implemented under the STEP program.
1. Installation of baffle walls in the South Plant aeration basin to reduce short-circuiting.
2. Chemical coagulant addition at select process locations to reduce phosphorus entering the EBPR system.
3. Heating of primary sludge fermenters to yield higher volatile acids to the EBPR system.
The City installed the baffle walls in December 2018 and plans to begin construction of chemical phosphorus removal facilities in August 2019. The fermenter heating improvements have been evaluated but postponed until the chemical phosphorus removal improvements have been completed and are operational.
Preliminary results show reduced effluent phosphorus which may be attributed in part to the new baffle walls. Operational data and the process for evaluating STEP project alternatives will be reviewed. The audience will gain an understanding of potential alternatives for enhancing an existing EBPR process as a result of attending the presentation.
Of note, the project was developed by a combination of young and senior staff from both the City and the City's consultant. Some take-a-ways will be presented regarding Bridging of the Gap and knowledge transfer from senior to young staff.
|3:00pm - 4:30pm
|Session 18B: Wastewater 101: Membrane Treatment
Session Chair: Tom Giese, BHC Consultants;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Headloss, Velocity, & Fibrous Re-agglomeration Effects On Membrane Pre-Screening
Ovivo USA, United States of America;
Water and Wastewater Membranes need to be protected against fibrous & sharp debris that not only create excessive membrane cleaning cycles & labor intensity, but often abrade & damage membrane surfaces, as well as clog the aeration manifolds that scour the membranes. Fine & Ultra-fine Pre-Screening has become extremely important in protecting both membrane warrantees and membrane efficiency. This paper emphasizes the importance of fine screening with data showing how short fine cotton-wool fibers, hair & filamentous algae will pass through 3mm and 2mm aperture screens and "Agglomerate & "Recombine" downstream into stringy, rag type debris that increases the operating maintenance & membrane cleaning cycles.
This presentation with supporting pilot plant & field data focuses on why velocity and headloss are the two most important characteristics in understanding how screens are properly sized, maintained & operated. CFD (computational fluid Dynamics) analysis with screenings capture data reveals the direct relationship velocity & headloss have on a screen's capture efficiency & performance. It emphasizes & disproves the myth as to why matting of solids onto screening surfaces will ultimately over time reduce the screenings capture efficiency rather than improve upon it as many believe. The presentation will also emphasize the aperture requirement for removing 2 dimensional versus 3 dimensional solids, as well as explain & document how small size debris that passes through 3mm, 2mm holes, slots or mesh is capable of re-agglomerating (re-combining) into large clumps & bundles of fibrous debris, commonly known as ragging, that foul downstream processes requiring higher maintenance & increased cleaning cycles. A screen's effluent quality affects the life-span and operation & maintenance of downstream membranes & their aeration manifolds. The laboratory & field data provided in this presentation will demonstrate the importance of aperture selection, as well as the direct relationship headloss & velocity have on the performance & effluent quality exiting a screen. Membranes can be expensive investments; therefore it is imperative that one understand how we can best protect that investment, as well as maintain regulatory discharge compliance.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
A Survey of Operating Membrane Bioreactor Facilities in North America
1HDR Engineering, Inc., United States of America; 2Smith Culp Consulting;
Membrane bioreactors have been used to reclaim water in the United States and Canada for more than 20 years. However, some operating aspects, particularly variability in mixed liquor filterability and membrane flux limitations, have been challenging.
The authors have previously conducted separate assessments of 'lessons learned' in MBR design and operation: Membrane Bioreactors - Lessons Learned, Gordon Culp, Presented at the 2018 Nevada Water Environment Association Conference, and Fifteen Years of Progressive Membrane Bioreactor Experience in the Pacific Northwest, Patrick Roe, 2018 Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference. These two assessments summarized the authors' experience with several membrane bioreactors in the Pacific Northwest and presented case studies of operating successes and challenges.
To conduct a more comprehensive assessment, the authors have conducted a national survey of operating membrane bioreactor installations with significant design capacity (greater than 1 mgd). This presentation reports the survey results. The survey is focused on the following key areas:
The survey results will be tabulated to present trends in MBR design, operation and maintenance. This guidance is intended for utilities modifying existing MBRs to improve performance and operability, as well as to provide guidance for design and operation of new membrane facilities.
|3:00pm - 4:30pm
|Session 19B: Utility Management: Infrastructure Planning
Session Chair: Ann Hajnosz, Harris & Associates;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Flowing through Options – What's the Best Way to Extend Sewer to Future Development?
1Murraysmith, Inc; 2City of Pocatello; ,
Bridging the gap between two municipalities and developers, regulators, engineers, and operators isn't an easy task. Our approach to this Collection System Master Plan Amendment evaluated a multitude of feasible options and aimed to provide critical information to all required stakeholders.
Over the past decade, the City of Pocatello has experienced small amounts of growth. However, the City recently received plans for large development that will significantly increase the City's service area and sewer infrastructure requirements. This presentation will describe the many options that should be considered in planning for such a significant change to the system, particularly one that spans significant foothills and elevation changes.
We will outline the proposed initial steps, all the way through the submittal of the final report, and the many options considered between those two bookends. Ultimately, the work included many conversations about feasible options—whether that be political, financial, or regulatory—that were then vetted through hydraulic modeling. Some options had enough data to propose routes all the way from the user to the wastewater treatment plant. Others had limited data that only provided a high-level evaluation of a potential service solution, and a few were ultimately given costs and moved forward. The City is now in a position to navigate the process of presenting the results to all interested parties and adapt as the reality diverges from the technical recommendations, which has already happened in at least one instance.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Strategic Infrastructure Models for Water and Wastewater
StreamlineAM, United States of America;
As utilities enter the age of replacement and begin to shift from development planning into replacement planning, a long-term replacement forecast becomes a crucial communication tool with stakeholders. Delaying needed replacements is an exercise in kicking the can down the road but many stakeholders do not see the forecast and understand that in most cases doing so compounds the problem in the future. Strategic Infrastructure models forecast these infrastructure needs long into the future (up to 100 years) based on utility data and practices. These forecasts can then be used to communicate the impacts of different funding and replacement scenarios.
This presentation will review Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility's effort at strategic Infrastructure modeling. In 2007, 2010, 2012/2013, and 2018 the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility prepared strategic asset renewal models for AWWU's inventory of water/wastewater assets. Long-term replacement needs, wear out and repair estimates and anticipated changes in service levels over time were all produced as part of these efforts. We will review the data inputs and the changes in inputs over time, as well as reviewing the forecasts and forecast assumption over time.
|3:00pm - 4:30pm
|Session 20B: Innovation and the Future: Pilot Testing Results
Session Chair: Tyson Schlect, HDR;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
A Year in the Life of Enhanced Primary Treatment – The Dalles, OR
Kennedy Jenks Consultants, United States of America; ,
In 2018, the City of The Dalles completed a comprehensive upgrade to its wastewater treatment plant, including Enhanced Primary Treatment facilities. The City installed twin rotating belt filters to divert a significant portion of the carbon load (suspended organics) directly to anaerobic digestion. This has resulted in reduced air demands, increased energy savings, and deferment of secondary process expansion. The City also constructed a new primary anaerobic digester and combined heat and power (CHP) cogeneration system to maximize the City's return on its investment. This presentation will review the financial performance of this enhanced primary treatment project and compare actual performance, results, and operational data with the findings of the pilot study.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Full and Demonstration Scale Implementation of Pile Cloth Depth and Compressible Medium Filtration Technologies for Primary Filtration
1Kennedy/Jenks Consultants, United States of America; 2University of California at Davis; 3Aqua-Aerobics Systems, Inc.; 4WesTech, Inc.;
Primary filtration (PF) is an advanced primary treatment (APT) technology that can be used as a replacement for conventional primary sedimentation at water resource recovery facilities (WRRF). While demonstrations of PF have thus far shown improved solids and organics reduction as compared to conventional primary sedimentation, evaluation of long-term operational requirements and downstream impacts will provide increased confidence for the use of the PF technology by WRRFs. Two filtration technologies currently being evaluated for applications in PF are pile cloth depth filtration (PCDF) and compressible media filtration (CMF). Full-scale PCDF and demonstration-scale CMF installations are currently being tested at Linda County Water District (LCWD) WRRF. Each installation is operating in parallel to the facility's primary clarifiers. The purpose of this presentation is twofold: (1) to provide more comprehensive information on the observed long-term performance of PF using CMF and PCDF technologies, and (2) to present the significance of PF with respect to enhanced biological treatment, energy production, and cost for wastewater treatment.
The full-scale PCDF unit has a capacity of 1.5 million gallons per day (MGD) and has been in operation since July 2017. Results from continuous operation have shown removal efficiencies of approximately 85% and 60% for total suspended solids (TSS) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), respectively; these removal rates represent significant improvement over performance of primary clarifiers, which typically achieve removal efficiencies of 50-60% for TSS and 25-30% for BOD. The performance of PCDF at LCWD WRRF is consistent with performance observed in other demonstrations of PCDF for PF at other WRRFs.
The demonstration-scale CMF unit was installed at LCWD WRRF in May 2018 and has been in intermittent day operation. Overall treatment performance results show removal efficiencies comparable to PCDF. One distinction of the CMF system is to achieve higher removals of soluble organics, which can provide additional carbon diversion benefits.
With the PF system, aeration requirement (of the downstream secondary treatment process) was observed to decrease approximately 20 to 25 % while increasing the digester gas production by approximately 35 %. Operational and hydraulic performances of both PF technologies were also evaluated and will be included in this presentation.
|3:00pm - 4:30pm
|Session 21B: Asset Management: BIM
Session Chair: Kyle Pettibone, RH2;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Are you ready? Hurdles to Navigating your Organization from 2D CAD Basics to Implementing BIM
Stantec, United States of America;
Municipal agencies across the country are in various stages of developing Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) and Building Information Model (BIM) Execution Standards to convert their asset information from a conventional 2D CAD platform to a BIM platform. BIM has transparent complexity. It is a simple concept to grasp, but many engineering department staff are not familiar with the ever changing advances and increases of power in CAD technology. This can lead to challenges in developing a vision of how an Agency will use BIM model files to support capital expansion, operations, or maintenance activities after projects are completed. As drafting and design standards have come a long way over the past few decades, this presentation will seek to answer the following questions:
- What is the current state of CAD technology and what is feasible today?
- What kind of BIM guidelines are being implemented at agencies across the country?
- If standards are developed, how are they implemented within the Agency?
- Is BIM design more expensive? Can it be cost competitive?
- How detailed can BIM design be? How should I determine the appropriate Level of Design?
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Utilizing Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Safety by Design
Black & Veatch Corporation, United States of America; ,
Most utility managers and staff understand the importance of adhering to safe practices and preventing accidents in the care and construction of water and wastewater facilities. But not everyone recognizes the value of building safety into projects during initial planning and design to maximize safety during operations, maintenance, and construction activities.
Safety by Design (SbD) focuses on the systematic assessment of potential construction and operational and maintenance (O&M) hazards and the development of cost-effective hazard-elimination or mitigation plans during the design process. It identifies potential project-specific hazards for O&M staff and construction activities; allows the project designer to reduce or eliminate those risks through adjustments to the design; and enables utilities to assess potential risks, minimize potential accidents, provide enhanced safety for operations and maintenance staff, and reduce risks for communities.
Protocols include the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM), which helps owners visualize complicated structures and the arrangement of equipment to identify potential safety hazards related to access, maintenance, and lifting.
Benefits of focusing sharply on safety in in the design of water and wastewater facilities include decreased cost of operations and increased safety performance throughout construction and over the life of a facility. SbD promotes the development of facilities that are safer to construct, operate, and maintain.
This presentation will demonstrate how BIM can be used to effectively incorporate safety during the design of water and wastewater treatment facilities.
|3:00pm - 4:30pm
|Session 22B: Facility Operations and Maintenance: Process Optimization
Session Chair: Doug Berschauer, Parametrix;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Real-Time Process Controls to Improve Operational Sustainability: A Study of Two East Coast Wastewater Facilities
Hazen and Sawyer, United States of America;
The purpose of this presentation is to summarize real-time process control programs and historical data from two east coast wastewater facilities to illustrate benefits and challenges associated with using advanced process control programs for nitrification, denitrification, and solids separation. The programs include ammonia-based aeration control (ABAC), aerobic solids retention time control, optimized dissolved oxygen (DO) control, chemical nutrient-pace dosing, ammonia-based-load equalization, and secondary clarifier guidance. In addition to presenting positive impacts such as cost and time savings and process optimization, operator feedback on challenges including calibration, cleaning, and troubleshooting of on-line analyzer instruments will be included in the presentation.
Operating data post-program implementation at the Neuse River Resource Recovery Facility (NRRRF) and North Durham Water Reclamation Facility (NDWRF) was analyzed to evaluate changes in operational efficiency and cost savings resulting from real-time process controls.
For example, after implementation of ABAC, NDWRF optimized the ammonia setpoint to make BNR basin nitrification more reliable. Effluent TN was reduced by 0.6 mg/L (from 2.9 to 2.3 mg/L) by allowing increased simultaneous nitrification and denitrification and less DO entering the anoxic zones. Also, the mass of nitrate removed in the second anoxic zone per pound of glycerin added increased from 2.1 to 3.0 lb nitrate/lb glycerin, illustrating how ABAC also made denitrification more efficient.
NRRRF has also seen significant improvements in denitrification and carbon savings following implementation of ABAC, nutrient-paced carbon feed, and ammonia-based load equalization. Overall, nitrate concentrations at the end of the aerobic zone have decreased from 10 mg/L in 2017 to 8.5 mg/L in 2018, and methanol use has decreased by 32%.
NRRRF and NDWRF have optimized their process to achieve reduced effluent total nitrogen concentrations and decrease operating cost with several real-time process control programs. These low-cost solutions are helping utilities operate more efficiently with reduced chemical and energy demand.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Providing Onsite Laboratory Support to Improve Treatment Facility Operations
Clean Water Services, United States of America;
Clean Water Services (CWS) operates a centralized Water Quality Laboratory (WQL) to support efforts across the District. Every year, over 30,000 treatment plant, surface water and industrial samples are sent to the WQL where more than 140,000 analyses are performed. The centralized approach is efficient and cost-effective. However, this approach also disconnects laboratory personnel from the context of the samples and slows turnaround time between sample collection and when results are available for process decision making.
Over the past few years, CWS has implemented a different strategy to improve the support the WQL provides to the Wastewater Treatment Department. The relocation of a laboratory specialist from the centralized lab to the Durham Treatment Facility has facilitated collaboration between multiple departments within CWS including the WQL, Operations, Electrical & Instrumentation, and the Technology, Development and Research group. This collaboration and face-to-face communication has allowed for more rapid and effective troubleshooting of online analyzers, as well as standardization of online instrument maintenance and validation.
The laboratory specialist is key to the standardized approach to instrument maintenance and validation. The laboratory specialist serves as the instrument champion with responsibility to:
This standardized approach has resulted in greater instrument accuracy and dependability and increased CWS reliance on online instruments. Shifting the structure of the WQL to provide onsite support has been a success. Process control data is available faster, instrumentation is more reliable and coordination between work groups has improved. This presentation will detail the role of the onsite laboratory specialist, summarize the CWS standardized approach to instrument operation, and provide lessons learned through the development of this new role.
|3:00pm - 4:30pm
|Session 23B: Wastewater Process: Aerobic Granular Sludge
Session Chair: Miaomiao Zhang, Murraysmith;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Aerobic Granular Sludge Technology: An Innovative Wastewater Treatment Solution
Aqua-Aerobic Systems, Inc., United States of America;
A research partnership in the Netherlands led to the development of the first full-scale application of aerobic granular sludge (AGS) technology. Now, with more than 10 years of operational experience, there are over 50 AGS plants worldwide.
Within a single tank, the AGS system creates proper conditions to reliably maintain a stable granule, without the need of carriers. Due to the layered microbial community within the granule structure, simultaneous processes take place in the granular biomass, including EBPR, and simultaneous nitrification/denitrification. Extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) biopolymer, produced by bacteria, forms the backbone of the granule. These granules enable the system to better withstand adverse conditions compared to conventional systems.
Due to the characteristics of the granular biomass and enhanced settling properties (SVI at 30-50 mL/g), the system is typically designed for 8 g/L of MLSS. Based on this and the fact that all processes occur in a single tank, the AGS system reduces footprint up to 75% and provides up to 50% energy savings compared to activated sludge systems; in addition to savings in chemical consumption when low level effluent nutrients are required. AGS is an ideal technology for plants looking to increase capacity, retrofit or upgrade, expand with limited footprint, and enhance biological nutrient removal.
In the US, a 200,000 gpd demonstration facility is in operation and three AGS pilot units have been constructed and currently commissioned at various sites.
This presentation will cover operation and advantages of the AGS technology with some performance data from various plants worldwide.
3:45pm - 4:30pm
The Enhancement of Activated Sludge Settling and Formation of Aerobic Granular Sludge Using New Hydraulic Selector Technology
1Kennedy/Jenks Consultants, United States of America; 2Colorado School of Mines, United States of America;
Conventional activated sludge is a simple and low-cost technology used globally for wastewater treatment. But there is a major bottleneck at these facilities, the separation of low-density poorly-settling biological floc by gravity in clarifiers. The poor settling characteristics of the floc result in oversized clarifiers, thin sludge blankets, and increased return and waste activated sludge pumping rates. To increase clarifier capacity and reduce energy consumption of existing treatment facilities, a simple hydraulic modification can be introduced to selectively remove floc with undesirable settling and biological properties.
Kennedy/Jenks (KJ) in collaboration with the Colorado School of Mines have developed a hydraulic selector technology designed to remove poorly settling floc and retain with better settling and nutrient removal characteristics. Simply, the hydraulic selector is a vacuum system with a unique intake geometry that removes solids based on their density and settling velocity. The hydraulic selector can be placed within existing process basins or secondary clarifiers and operated continuously or intermittently to remove poorly settling floc and substantially improve the sludge volume index (SVI) of the activated sludge. Initial hydraulic selector experiments have been completed using 120-L pilot-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR) modified with the hydraulic selector technology. The reactor received and treated raw municipal wastewater for over 180 days.
Preliminary results from pilot test have demonstrated that the SVI of the sludge in the SBR could be improved from 400 mL/g to less than 50 mL/g within 60 days and carbon (BOD5 < 20 mg/L), nitrogen (NH4 < 0.5 mg/L and NOx < 15 mg/L), and solids (TSS < 20 mg/L) removal could be maintained by implementing the hydraulic selector. Additionally, aerobic granules were formed in the modified SBR, which had a much lower height to diameter ratio (H:D = 1.3) compared to the shortest currently used aerobic granule reactors (H:D > 2.5).
|3:00pm - 4:30pm
|Session 24B: Operations and Maintenance
Session Chair: Yasaman Saghari, Stantec;
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Building a Diffuser Performance Monitoring Program
Clean Water Services, United States of America;
Due to the logistics associated with bringing aeration basins off line, Clean Water Services (CWS) has historically chosen not to routinely clean diffusers. Also, the ultimate replacement of diffusers is done on a schedule of 10 years instead of being prompted by performance. CWS has embarked on an effort to establish a diffuser monitoring program to support decisions about how frequently to clean and replace diffusers.
Diffuser performance is being characterized by tracking changes in diffuser headloss and oxygen transfer efficiency (OTE) over time. Both parameters are monitored using two approaches:
Current data comparing the SSI diffusers suggests that two diffuser types show undistinguishable OTE performance. However, the PTFE-coated diffusers have higher initial headloss. The diurnal variability makes using both OTE evaluation methods challenging for long-term performance characterization. In addition, optimization of the headloss monitoring system is required to guarantee data reliability.
This presentation will include the CWS efforts to implement this program and to help answer the following questions:
3:45pm - 4:30pm
McMinnville WRF: Reliably Meeting Low TP Limits for 25 Years
1Jacobs, United States of America; 2City of McMinnville, OR; , ,
The water reclamation facility (WRF) serving McMinnville, Oregon has reliably met one of the most stringent effluent total phosphorus (TP) limits in the Northwest for over 25 years. The WRF operates with an effluent TP limit from May 1 – October 31 for discharge into the South Yamhill River. The stringent effluent TP limit of 70 micrograms of phosphorus per liter (µg-P/L) must be met when the South Yamhill River monthly average flow drops below 100 cubic feet per second (cfs). This typically occurs during the summer months, July through September. The McMinnville WRF utilizes an Orbal™ oxidation ditch operating with enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) together with a tertiary treatment system that includes solids contact clarification, filtration (continuous upflow sand filters) and the associated chemical feed systems. The 6.6-mgd capacity tertiary treatment system was constructed in the mid-1990s and operates seasonally to address the TP limits at the facility.
The WRF's reliability is a result of the City staff's dedication to understanding and optimizing the system over the years. One example is the optimization of the oxidation ditch, implementing operational modifications to reliably develop and maintain EBPR during the permit season. Improvements and adjustments to the aerators and associated mixing system have been key. These changes have been informed by a high level of wastewater characterization completed at the facility over the years, providing valuable information to WRF staff. Teamwork among the City's public works staff, particularly pretreatment and collection system staff, are also integral to the success of the WRF's treatment process. Bridging the gap bewtween pretreatment, collections, and operations has been critical to meeting the WRF's stringent TP Limit. The cooperation and commitment of McMinnville staff for the last 25 years places the facility in a great position to meet the future challenges facing the City.
|Date: Wednesday, 11/Sep/2019
|8:00am - 10:15am
|Session 25A: Planning, Resiliency, Climate Science: Resiliency
Session Chair: Heather Stephens, Stantec;
Don't Predict the Future, Explore: a Stress Testing Approach to Vulnerability
1Brown and Caldwell, United States of America; 2City of Portland, Bureau of Environmental Services, United States of America; ,
The City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) is working to become a resilient utility through strategic improvements to its wastewater and stormwater systems. As global temperatures increase, the Pacific Northwest is expected to experience warmer winters and more intense rainfall, which could lead to more extreme events, greater runoff, and more severe urban flooding. The traditional planning paradigm typically selects one or more alternative scenarios based on highest likelihood and conservative assumptions. However, when faced with deep uncertainty and extreme scenarios, the traditional approach is insufficient. While we often use global and regional climate models to develop long-term projections, these data often lack the precision needed for engineering design and result in a cascade of compounding uncertainty when applied at a local scale. In response to this challenge, BES piloted a "stress testing" technique for evaluating system vulnerabilities over a wide range of future conditions. BES selected a large urbanized combined sewer basin in southeast Portland to analyze the potential impacts associated with changing rainfall patterns in terms of both the total rainfall for a storm event and the peak 5-minute rainfall intensity. BES ran multiple hydrologic and hydraulic simulations to evaluate sewer capacity limitations and explore a domain of future rainfall conditions. The extents of the domain were informed by, but not limited to, the future conditions forecasted by climate models. The results are being used to test the system beyond the typical safety margins for extreme events and evaluate potential improvements and strategies that are robust—performing well across a wide range of future conditions.
Seismic 102: Seismic Resilience
Stantec, United States of America;
Seismic resilience. What are you doing to prepare for the big one? Do you have a seismic resiliency plan? Is your system built on liquefiable soils? What are you doing about it? What can be done about it? Wait, much is this going to cost? This talk will introduce seismic resiliency concepts in a manner that is understandable to people without advanced degrees in seismology. Participants will leave with tangible concepts of how water and wastewater infrastructure can be protected against seismic events, how to establish seismic design criteria, and how to improve seismic resilience in a meaningful way.
This talk is an update from the Seismic 101 by Matthew Perkins in the 2016 conference in Bend. We will touch on the basic principles of seismic design requirements and jump right into how the building code is useful in establishing project design criteria. The straightforward approach to increase seismic resilience is to design new facilities as "essential facilities" or Risk Category IV, with design earthquake factors above and beyond the code minimum and require all equipment to be seismically certified, similar to the design of a hospital. This is the simple to design approach, but expensive and difficult to build approach. A more effective approach would be to evaluate the system and carefully select the elements to focus on for reliability after a seismic event, getting the most resilience on a limited budget.
Portland Resiliency Planning for Wastewater and Stormwater Infrastructure
1Brown and Caldwell; 2City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services; ,
In March of 2019, the City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (City) completed a Resiliency Master Plan (RMP) to develop an initial approach to improving resiliency to earthquakes and climate change for the City's stormwater and sanitary system infrastructure. Resiliency includes both reducing the risks of critical infrastructure failure due to natural disasters (mitigation) and improving the recovery time of the systems after a disaster. With respect to seismic hazards, the RMP focused on risks associated with a Cascadia Subduction Zone Magnitude 9.0 earthquake. A critical backbone of the sewer system was defined for the analysis, and an evaluation of seismic risks was conducted for the backbone in terms of ability to meet recovery goals established in the 2013 Oregon Resilience Plan. Gaps in the ability to meet goals were identified and recommendations were developed to address gaps in terms of administrative solutions, construction solutions and capital projects. With respect to climate change, the Northwest is projected to experience hotter, drier summers, and warmer, wetter winters with more intense rainfall leading to a variety of potential impacts, including increases in flooding, landslides, basement sewer backups, sewer overflows, and damage to vegetation and habitat. Planning for climate change is daunting given the wide range of variability and uncertainty surrounding future projections. The traditional planning paradigm typically selects one or more future scenarios based on highest likelihood and conservative assumptions. However, when faced with numerous uncertainties and extreme scenarios, this traditional approach is insufficient. The RMP evaluated two decision-making approaches to assess climate change vulnerabilities in the system. These approaches included stress testing and scenario planning. The RMP project piloted these approaches to evaluate plausible vulnerabilities to climate change and put BES on a path toward developing strategic responses to potential impacts. This presentation will provide a comprehensive overview of the RMP project along with a summary of early actions, outcomes, and next steps.
|8:00am - 10:15am
|Session 26A: Wastewater 101: Electrical/I&C
Session Chair: Andrew Matsumoto, Civil West Engineering Services;
8:00am - 8:45am
Odorous Gases Wreaking Havoc on Electrical Equipment in Wastewater Plant Control Rooms
PureAir Filtration, United States of America;
In the world of wastewater treatment there is a major focus on odor control, and rightfully so. Odor controls systems have become standard features in new wastewater treatment projects. Urban encroachment has led to residential and commercial development on the doorsteps of treatment plants and lift stations. Where once wastewater odors were just a fact of life, neighbors no longer accept this status quo. There are a multitude of technologies to monitor and control Hydrogen Sulfide and other sewage gases, but not much discussion on the effects of these odorous gases on electronic equipment and the treatment plants. Very high levels of corrosive gases and vapors from processes attack electronic controls which control the plant costing billions of dollars in equipment damage, outages and casing potential harm to personnel. Some of the areas affected are control rooms, administrative buildings, instrumentation storage, and any place that has sensitive electrical equipment.
Various customers and engineering firms in the industrial market follow the Instrument Society of America ISA-71.04 standard for the control of airborne contaminants, which has been in place for 30+ years. Within the municipal markets there are only a handful of engineering firms such as HDR, Hazen & Sawyer, and AECOM that have incorporated corrosion control technology within their master specifications and actively design and specify these systems for corrosion control in wastewater treatment plant control rooms.
This paper will discuss the effects of corrosion as well as the economic cost impacts at the wastewater facilities. Additional discussion will be made regarding effective methods and equipment for protecting the electronic equipment.
8:45am - 9:30am
Power Regeneration During ASR Injection
3R Valve, United States of America; ,
Power generation during ASR (Aquifer Storage and Recovery) has been meet with heavy speciesism. With a few municipalities and private owners willing to try the new and developing technology, the analyzed results indicate and prove power regeneration during ASR injection is viable with a short return on investment. ASR power regeneration can be achieved with a minor addition to a typical ASR well project. In order to generate power from the motor, the pumping motor is allowed to run in reverse during ASR injection. With the use of a regeneration VFD (Variable Frequency Drive), AC power is generated and reduces the overall consumption of power by the end user. One specific well, for example, was analyzed over a five-year period. The total amount of non-native ASR water stored after that five-year period was 103.37 billion gallons. During that same period of injection, with the use of power regeneration, the consumer offset and reduced the total power consumption by 269.27 megawatts. The potential amount of power generated from ASR regeneration has the ability to offset the cost of pumping by tens of thousands of dollars. Power utility credits and the amount of money saved over the lifetime of a well pumping application, gives the end user comfort and flexibility to utilize surplus capital for other necessary projects.
9:30am - 10:15am
Virtualization For Wastewater Control Systems
Tesco Controls Inc., United States of America;
2. Problems that Virtualization solves
3. Main software choices for Virtualization of Wastewater Control Systems
4. How to Virtualize a Wastewater Control System
|8:00am - 10:15am
|Session 27A: Asset Management
Session Chair: Victoria Lopez Boschmans, Hazen and Sawyer;
8:00am - 8:45am
Maturing your Asset Management Program: Lessons from the front line, to the bottom line
1Jacobs, United States of America; 2Clark Regional Wastewater District; ,
The Discovery Clean Water Alliance has developed an Asset Management Roadmap to guide the improvement of managing the regional collection system and treatment facility assets. To develop the roadmap, the Alliance undertook a Comprehensive Asset Management Review and Assessment to evaluate the Alliance's current and desired position along a maturity spectrum in 38 asset management theme areas.
A multi-year program of discrete asset management initiatives were identified to close gaps between current practices and best asset management practices. This program will bring the Alliance into alignment with desired asset management maturity that will improve reliability,cost efficiency and focusasset management efforts to provide the most benefit.
Following the Roadmap development, the Alliance immediately recognized that a comprehensive risk analysis of all significant assets was required to make measurable progress in the next biennial budget period. Through a series of facilitated workshops with engineering and O&M leadership, each major asset (building, pump, equipment, etc) was scored for likelihood and consequence of failure. The resulting "criticality" score for each asset was then ranked for action. This process, called Initial Criticality and Condition Assessment (ICCA), is a simple, cost effective process that could be replicated by many utilities to quickly identify the most critical needs.
This presentation will explain in detail the practice of developing the Asset management Roadmap, and the practical ICCA process used to identify needs based primarily on input from front line O&M staff. Utilities of all sizes can benefit from the lessons and practices implemented here and following this example of the "80/20 Principle".
8:45am - 9:30am
Bridging Condition Data Gaps with Unmanned Vehicles
Brown and Caldwell, United States of America; ,
In 2017, America's Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure were given grades of D and D+, respectively, by the American Society of Civil Engineers. While critical pieces of water infrastructure are aging and deteriorating, many municipalities scramble to address growing demand and budget pressures. As a result, utilities are increasingly reliant on new tools and technologies that allow them to bridge gaps and do more with less.
Unmanned aerial, surface, and submersible vehicles, coupled with new data visualization techniques to improve data utilization, are helping to provide utilities with the critical condition assessment information they need to strategically rehab their facilities and stretch their dollars further. Unmanned vehicles have the potential to significantly improve the cost, speed, safety, and quality of condition assessments in the water, wastewater, and stormwater sectors. When equipped with advanced sensor payloads such as lidar, sonar, multispectral, and thermal imaging, the unmanned vehicles provide insights not previously possible. When employed to reduce or eliminate the need for manned inspections of tanks, culverts, pipelines and other infrastructure, they can significantly improve productivity and value.
Throughout this presentation we will share experiences, results, and specific examples from projects with the City of Tacoma, California DWR, City of San Jose, and others where we used a variety of unmanned vehicles and advanced sensors to answer tough questions. We'll also share approaches to avoid "data overload" through improved data interfaces to allow for faster and more informed decisions about what repairs are necessary and enable utilities to be more strategic with their capital budgets.
9:30am - 10:15am
The Big Payback: Portland's Innovative Approach to Pump Station Investments
1Water Systems Consulting, United States of America; 2City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services; , ,
The City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services operates 97 wastewater pump stations within their service area, including thousands of assets to track and maintain. The Pump Station Improvement Plan had been in place to prioritize capital spending; however, this process was manually executed and heavily rooted in institutional knowledge. Organizational changes provided an opportunity to evolve the program into an automated system. Partnering with Water Systems Consulting (WSC), the Bureau decided to re-envision its approach to pump station asset management to achieve these aims by creating the Pump Station System Plan.
WSC and BES established multiple key goals of the program. The primary driver of the project and ultimate output would be a Capital Improvement Program that prioritizes projects by comparative business risk. Several innovative strategies were implemented:
· Development and piloting of multiple digital tools to streamline field data collection
· A Condition Assessment Program that leverages routine operator activities to continually update condition information
· Automating a criticality analysis to prioritize critical assets
· Analysis of BES capital projects to predict costs of an unplanned failure
· Utilizing operating data and GIS to predict impacts of sanitary sewer overflows
· Establishing a "living" system plan that presents annualized risk for each station in a system-wide dashboard
· Refining key performance indicators to flag heightened risks such as health and safety hazards or technological obsolescence
A robust data management plan is essential to successful implementation. WSC sought to leverage existing software and tools to promote sustainable procedures and continuity in operations. However, challenges arising from data access, compatibility, and quality required a realistic approach to evaluate the short and long-term data integration effort. Our presentation will describe methods used to develop and maintain system tools to provide attendees with an understanding of how they can be scaled to provide benefits to systems of all sizes.
|8:00am - 10:15am
|Session 28A: Facility Operations and Maintenance: Wet Weather Treatment
Session Chair: Gregg Thompson, Jacobs;
8:00am - 8:45am
Pitfalls of Using HDPE for Process Piping
HDR, United States of America;
The construction industry, engineering community, and utilities strive to trim costs and develop the maximum project from ever-shrinking budgets. HDPE pipe is being promoted as a cost saving alternative that provides superior performance and very low head loss characteristics. Testing by the Plastic Pipe Institute (PPI) has documented Hazen-Williams flow coefficients greater than 160 even with the internal fusion beads left inside the pipe test sections. The PPI's Handbook of Polyethylene Pipe, Second Edition, suggests a design C of 150, as does the Chevron Phillips Chemical Company Bulletin PP-901. AWWA Manual M55 also recognizes PE pipe as a viable material.
This presentation will focus on two facilities where HDPE was used for process piping within a treatment plant. The flow coefficients used in the hydraulic calculation were conservative when compared to the published PPI test data.
In one facility, a distribution structure splits flows to three process trains. At start-up the total design flow could not be routed through the distribution structure. At two-thirds of the design flow, the water level over-topped the emergency bypass weir. Methodical field testing determined the conservative flow coefficients used by the designers did not account for the internal beads at each fabricated elbow, tee or flange connection. The longest pipe run had 40 beads between the flow splitter and existing basins.
In another facility, HDPE pipe was used for the suction piping in pumping system. The designer used a conservative flow coefficient; however, testing at start-up revealed the calculated suction pressure and the actual measured suction pressure were substantially different. This piping configuration had 10 internal weld beads.
In both case studies fielding testing and verification determined that multiple interior weld beads imparted a resistance coefficient (K) greater than 0.15.
8:45am - 9:30am
Innovative Strategies and New Technologies for Wet Weather Treatment in the PNW.
Black & Veatch Corporation, United States of America; ,
Wet-weather flow management for wastewater treatment utilities in the Pacific Northwest is challenging, because of the unpredictable size and nature of wet weather events that are even more complicated by climate change, and the uncertainty of what future requlations will require. The planning and planning of new treatment facilities need to consider a wide range of strategies for source control, conveyance, and treatment to provide the optimum long-term solution for each watershed.
Fortunately, municipal utilities now have a larger variety of feasible treatment alternatives than ever compared to just a generation ago, when most of North America's water quality regulations and policies were crafted. Significant advances have been made since then, both in treatment technologies and in the profession's understanding of wet-weather problems. Many of these "new" treatment technologies have been in operation for over a decade, proving their capabilities. This paper discusses regulatory drivers for wet weather treatment and different strategies for addressing them. The strategies include advanced technologies, examples of how and where they have been applied, their potential advantages and disadvantages and how each might fit into an existing treatment strategy and contribute to a utility's water quality goals.
9:30am - 10:15am
Designing for BioMag®
1City of Klamath Falls; 2Carollo Engineers, Inc.; 3Stantec / Slayden Constructors; 4HDR, Inc.; 5Evoqua Water Technologies;
Carollo Engineers, Inc., recently completed the design of a new BioMag® system at the Spring Street Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The BioMag® system is intended to minimize the bioreactor footprint and associated capital costs required to reliably meet more stringent nutrient requirements without the use of primary clarification. Once constructed, this would be the first installation of a BioMag system anywhere on the West Coast.
In the BioMag® system, active biomass in the secondary process is bound to denser magnetite granules suspended in the mixed liquor, which allows for a higher biomass concentration than in a conventional activated sludge process, as well as more rapid settling of suspended solids during the clarification process. The increased concentration of active biomass and improved settling allows for enhanced nutrient removal with minimal reactor volumes. The biologically inert magnetite granules are recovered from waste sludge via rotating magnetic drum separators and fed back into the secondary treatment process.
This presentation will discuss key challenges, considerations, and solutions identified during the process of designing a BioMag® system at the Spring Street STP, including:
|8:00am - 10:15am
|Session 29A: Regulatory Challenges
Session Chair: Eric Roundy, Keller Associates, Inc.;
8:00am - 8:45am
NEW Water—Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District's Innovative Strategy And A Case Study For Implementing Watershed Nutrient Management
1Jacobs, United States of America; 2Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District;
As the Pacific Northwest grows, our water resources will face increasing pressures. The State of Washington projects that the population of the Puget Sound basin will increase by 1.7 million people by 2040 and estimates that the added population could translate to a 40 percent increase in nutrients discharged from publicly-owned treatment works.
With competing demands for public funds, wastewater utilities will need new and innovative tools to protect water quality. This presentation profiles an innovative watershed-based approach used by the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District (GBMSD), Wisconsin, to manage nutrients in their surrounding watershed that has relevance to Pacific Northwest communities facing similar challenges.
State of Wisconsin Regulatory Framework
The State of Wisconsin has enacted legislation that allows point sources to partner with other stakeholders to implement basin-wide strategies to meet total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) promulgated under Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (WPDES) Permits. These strategies have been shown to provide lower cost-saving opportunities when compared to traditional point source treatment approaches.
The NEW Water Program
NEW Water, the brand of the GBMSD venture into watershed collaboration for TMDL compliance, started with a pilot project. NEW Water and Jacobs have been leading stakeholders within local watersheds to pilot test adaptive management for TMDL compliance for GBMSD's wastewater treatment facilities. The success of these efforts has led GBMSD to formally include adaptive management for meeting nutrient limits stipulated in their WPDES Permits.
The presentation will discuss the following aspects of the NEW Water program:
8:45am - 9:30am
Achieving Temperature Compliance through Watershed Partnerships and Water Quality Trading
1The Freshwater Trust, United States of America; 2City of Springfield, United States of America; 3City of Ashland, United States of America; , ,
Water quality trading for temperature compliance in the Pacific Northwest has become established as an innovative tool for improving watershed health within the framework of National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting. Trading builds the bridge for green infrastructure projects to be counted and credited toward regulatory compliance. Using trading, municipalities are able to shift some amount of ratepayer compliance spending away from traditional grey infrastructure upgrades to high-quality watershed restoration that provides both regulatory compliance and a greater overall benefit to rivers and streams.
The City of Ashland and the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission of Eugene-Springfield (the MWMC) are launching trading programs to meet new temperature limits in their upcoming NPDES permits. Ashland's trading program plan has been accepted by the Oregon DEQ, and the city and its partners are embarking on implementation of riparian revegetation projects to generate credits to satisfy the expected temperature obligation. Following a successful pilot project implementation and coordination with Oregon DEQ and local partners, the MWMC has identified a pathway to cost-effective temperature credits generated from riparian shade restoration via landowner agreements established under the Pure Water Partners collaborative. Pure Water Partners provides a framework to bring together multiple partners with watershed protection and restoration objectives through diverse funding sources.
This presentation will discuss the two programs' next steps, including:
9:30am - 10:15am
Hold onto Your Cap: Navigating Nutrient Requirements for Puget Sound
HDR Engineering, United States of America; ,
Wastewater utilities that discharge to Puget Sound face new caps on nutrient discharges that are intertwined with complex water quality issues ranging from compliance with Washington's strict dissolved oxygen standards and new criteria for toxics, to broader implications for food chain impacts on endangered Chinook Salmon and Orcas. Nutrient management requirements compete for limited funding resources with a multiplicity of other challenges that wastewater managers must address. These issues include continuing provision of adequate capacity, wet weather compliance, asset management demands, resiliency, etc. Changes in wastewater characteristics, climate, demographics, and societal priorities all contribute to a cauldron of challenges to form the most complex operating environment to confront utilities since the inception of the Clean Water Act.
Washington Ecology has published a Bounding Scenario water quality modeling report as part of the "Puget Sound Nutrient Source Reduction Project" that includes seasonal biological nitrogen removal at all municipal wastewater facilities with an effluent concentration of Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen (DIN) of 8 mg/L and CBOD of 8 mg/L. Meanwhile, Northwest Environmental Advocates (NWEA) petitioned Ecology to adopt a rule establishing technology-based effluent limits for the discharge of nutrients and toxics from municipal wastewater treatment facilities that discharge to Puget Sound to include effluent limits for total nitrogen of 3.0 mg/L and phosphorus of 0.1 mg/L, or lower. In rejecting the NWEA petition, Ecology has committed to cap nutrient discharges and continue to pursue modeling to establish water quality based effluent limits.
This presentation will focus on strategies for easing the transition to nutrient removal through approaches that combine innovative regulatory frameworks with treatment technologies that address multiple utility challenges. Finding the optimal intersection between compliance requirements and treatment technology is the key to successfully navigating all of the demands for utility management on Puget Sound.
|8:00am - 10:15am
|Session 30A: Resource Recovery: Phosphorus
Session Chair: Usama Zaher, Intera;
8:00am - 8:45am
Phosphorous removal upgrade: Pullman, WA
University of Idaho; , , ,
Upgrades to the Pullman Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse Facility (WRRF) require a system capable of achieving secondary and tertiary total phosphorus (TP) effluent concentrations of less than 1 mg/L and 0.1 mg/L respectively. The upgrade will consist of an enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) system as a secondary treatment process to achieve the target secondary effluent TP concentration, followed by a chosen tertiary treatment alternative. Tertiary treatment alternatives explored are as follows:
Micro-Algal Phosphorus Removal
Utilization of BioWin modeling software, hand calculations, peer-reviewed literature, and a decision matrix generated a final design recommendation to meet the effluent requirements listed above. The final design will consist of an EBPR system in conjunction with struvite precipitation and chemical phosphorus removal. Struvite precipitation will target phosphorus removal of the anaerobic digester centrate being recycled to the front of the plant and chemical phosphorus removal will be employed for tertiary treatment.
Upgrades to the current facility will include:
Addition of an anaerobic zone for EBPR on each treatment train
8:45am - 9:30am
Long Term Treatment Performance of High Efficiency Sidestream Phosphorus Removal/Recovery System
1Ovivo USA LLC, United States of America; 2Paques BV;
High Phosphorus concentration sidestreams such as centrates, filtrates etc. can lead to significant operational and process problems at WWTPs by building up in the system via recirculation, leading to nuisance struvite formation and deposition.
This Phosphorus load can be removed much more efficiently and cost effectively in a sidestream treatment system versus removal in the mainstream. The Phospaq process is an aerated reactor that offers the capability to remove or recover Phosphorus in the sidestream via controlled struvite precipitation using Magnesium Oxide and has been implemented in over 11 different municipal and industrial facilities globally.
This paper discusses the long term performance of the process at two full scale wastewater treatment plants. The first plant is the Olburgen WWTP in the Netherlands where the process is implemented ahead of a granular sludge deammonification process for a blended municipal and industrial sidestream. Data from over 10 years of operation of this facility is presented where over 80% Phosphorus removal was consistently achieved with effluent PO4-P values below 20 mg/l. Experience with optimizing the Magnesium dosage is also discussed along with impacts of the same on the downstream deammonification system. The second plant is the Lomm WWTP in the Netherlands where the system was implemented after an anaerobic granular sludge process, where over two years of operation data are presented including effluent PO4-P values < 15 mg/l which were consistently achieved with struvite production of over 1,500 lbs/d, in the form of crystals of diameter approximately 0.7 mm, that met EU fertilizer requirements for land application as a commercial fertilizer substitute.
The Phospaq process thus offers a comprehensive and cost effective solution for utilities looking to address Phosphorus/Struvite issues at their plant while providing the option of recovering the Phosphorus as Struvite based slow release fertilizer product which could serve as a potential revenue source for the utility.
9:30am - 10:15am
Lessons Learned from a Decade of Phosphorus Recovery
Clean Water Services, United States of America;
For more than a decade, Clean Water Services has been utilizing Ostara's recovery technology to reduce the cost of meeting the stringent effluent phosphorus limits in our NPDES permit. In the ten years of operating the struvite recovery facilities, we found the initial focus of reducing in-plant phosphorus recycle and generating revenue from fertilizer sales was too narrow. To be successful and maximize the potential of the new technology, we had to evaluate and make process decisions with the entirety of the plant in mind. How we manage and track phosphorus from influent to effluent, pre-digestion thickening thru digested sludge dewatering, became critical to plant stability and cost of phosphorus treatment. For example, the implementation of the WASSTRIP process significantly changed the operation of the WAS thickening process by reducing required thickening centrifuges online but also increases the mass of released phosphorus that must be managed to prevent shock loading on the liquids treatment process.
This presentation will cover the positive and negative impacts our efforts to maximize recovery have had on the phosphorus mass balance through the treatment processes. A phosphorus mass balance will be used to illustrate the overall impacts from each of the decisions and demonstrate:
Understanding these processes allowed us to make informed decisions that account for operational and economic impacts. Each of these changes to the phosphorus mass balance has had positive and negative impacts to the rest of the plant unit processes. We will discuss how these impacts are mitigated and used to our advantage to optimize phosphorus recovery and improve stability in the BPR process.
|8:00am - 10:15am
|Session 31A: Construction /Alternative Delivery
Session Chair: David Hammond, City of Portland BES;
8:00am - 8:45am
Emergency! Completing Must Do Construction in a Short Work Window
1City of Renton, WA; 2Carollo; 3Tetra Tech; , ,
The City of Renton, WA owns and maintains a lakeline sewer buried within Lake Washington and serving the Kennydale neighborhood. A condition assessment of the lakeline found partial obstruction and the limited onshore access prevented effective cleaning. Without additional action there was potential for overflows into Lake Washington and backup into shoreline homes. The City issued an emergency declaration in June, 2018 reflecting the desire to complete cleaning by the end of summer.
The City has three existing submerged manholes allowing access to portions of the lakeline. analysis recommended additional manholes were needed to clean large portions of the line. To complete the manhole installation and cleaning the City obtained local, state, and federal permits. Permit conditions constrained the allowable work window to protect salmon. Further, this work window was within the prime swim/boating season valued by the Lakefront residents and park users at a popular City Park.
The implementation of the emergency declaration by the City assisted the work by:
The presentation will discuss the City's approach to issuing an emergency declaration and the impacts on the project. The similarities with design/build type contracting mechanisms will also be reviewed.
While the construction and cleaning from temporary manholes in Lake Washington was successful, it was not without difficulty. The presentation will discuss challenges including:
The presentation will be applicable for Operators, Engineers, and Utility Managers.
8:45am - 9:30am
When a Crisis Demands Bridging Gaps between Engineer, Owner, and Contractor
Murraysmith, United States of America;
After the wettest day on record at the Portland Airport, a 160 foot-long, 8 foot-wide, by 12 foot-tall arch culvert failed and washed out a portion of Kane Drive - a five-lane arterial and freight transit route in Gresham, Oregon. Following a quick assessment, engineers determined a temporary emergency repair was needed to get the road opened as soon as possible. This project serves as a great example of how to successfully respond to the type of emergency expected by a subduction zone earthquake or weather impacts due to climate change.
This presentation will share tips and tricks the City implemented to open after just 21 days, including: Removed restraints to teamwork by implementing a modified design/build approach; Authorized City PM, Engineering PM, and Contractor PM to make joint decisions; Rapidly evaluated options on the fly and supported quick decision making; Operated with a spirit of nimbleness and flexibility to maximum benefit; Aligned owner, engineer, and contractor goals by removing bureaucratic barriers; Committed to mutually beneficial continuous communication
This emergency project is a real-life example of how to prevail when faced with a natural disaster. The team's commitment to flexible problem solving and sharing a common goal were keys to success.
9:30am - 10:15am
The Trenchless Two Step – Uniquely Combining Trenchless Solutions in the City of CDA
J-U-B Engineers, INC., United States of America;
Routine inspections, conducted by City of Coeur D' Alene Wastewater Staff, uncovered an unmistakable non-routine problem that was in close proximity to the recently remodeled City Hall, Lake Coeur d' Alene and the City's iconic park. Limited CCTV images left more questions than answers, but revealed the top half of a 30-inch interceptor was entirely missing and an apparent void space remained above the pipe. At 32 feet deep, solutions were limited and full collapse of the pipe would have triggered a costly emergency response. Knowing the City's interceptor was severely damaged and nearing catastrophic failure, J-U-B Engineers and City Staff worked closely together to quickly develop a project which provided a practical and economic solution that minimally impacted City patrons.
To identify a path forward, brute force nighttime investigations with a local contractor and City Staff provided valuable insight on the severity of the pipe and its unique underground conditions. Understanding the cause of the damage and investigation into the pipe's distinct original construction method led to a clearer understanding of how a sinkhole was avoided for years, but highlighted several unconventional challenges for trenchless rehabilitation.
Multiple rehabilitation methods were considered including pipe bursting, slip lining, CIPP, fold-and-form, and spiral wound liners - each having their advantages and disadvantages. The overall construction cost and likelihood of success identified the less common water inversion CIPP installation method as the most practical solution, but added a high risk point repair and potential environmental impacts to the downstream collection system. Several void investigation tools, including seismic tomography and ground penetrating radar, were considered with this project. Ultimately, a customized trenchless point repair system was engineered to provide the pipe with structural integrity and bridge the collapsed pipe section prior to lining. Successful rehabilitation of the pipe was completed on time and on budget in the Spring of 2018.
City staff and J-U-B will present the decision path for this project, including lessons learned and how this project continues to unfold even after initial repair.
|8:00am - 10:15am
|Session 32A: Math for Operators (Part 1)
Session Chair: Jeffrey A Lundt, King County Wastewater Treatment Division;
Room Monitor: Doug Berschauer, Parametrix;
This is a Training-in-a-Box program intended to be used by other seasoned professionals to bring training to the operators in their communities. To recieve CEUs you must attend both Part 1 and Part 2 of Math for Operators
Math for Operators (Part 1)
1King County Wastewater Treatment Division, United States of America; 2Parametrix, United States of America; ,
Water and Wastewater Operator Certification tests continue to show one of the weaker skills in operators is math. Competent math skills are required for operators in setting pumping rates, process control, chemical feed and maintenance activities. This presentation will start with the basics of arithmetic, algebra and trigonometry, and spend a significant amount of time in developing the important skills of tracking and changing units.
A wide range of relevant problems will be worked through step-by-step to show and reinforce the process. The session will conclude with operators working through several problems on their own and then checking their results and process against the instructor's in a step-by-step review so attendees can see errors or alternative approaches to getting to the correct result.
Problems used have been taken from example tests and actual facility needs.
Each attendee will be given a copy of the ABC Professional Operator Formula/Conversion Table. A segment of the workshop is set aside to review this tool and discuss other references available to the operator in their daily routine.
The material presented is applicable for both water and wastewater operators. Examples and problems from each will be used in the presentations and the attendee problem solving.
One goal of this presentation is to teach others to be able to take the material back to their communities and provide training for operators who are not able to attend regional conferences. All presentations and other materials will be available to attendees for use in teaching in the Sections or utilities.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 25B: Planning, Resiliency, Climate Science: Planning
Session Chair: Heather Stephens, Stantec;
A Holistic Approach to Improving National Water Quality
USDA/NRCS, United States of America;
Human survival depends on the availability of fresh water. The total amount of water on planet Earth has not changed but the quality has reduced considerably because of its extensive and improper use. The global supply of fresh water per capita is expected to further drop because rising world population and the greater demand for food, fiber and fuel. Sources of water pollution, caused by interruptions to natural water cycle (both natural and human), are broadly classified into point-sources (discharges from sewage and other industrial plants) and non-point sources (primarily agriculture). In the United State, major regulatory emphasis has been in controlling discharges from point sources that has lead to improvement in US waters. However, there are still several waterbodies that are polluted and need continuous attention to maintain and improve their water quality. It is well documented that agriculture is the largest user and the biggest polluter of water. There is urgent need to explore an integrated approach where both point and non-point sources are bridged together for improving national water quality. This presentation introduces a framework of three-legged stool (legislation, policy, and tools & techniques) for improving national water quality. It presents a thematic model that integrates water pollution contributing factors and how US regulations such as the US-EPA Clean Water Act and related to TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) have been helping in controlling the pollutions. The innovative approach of the water quality trading that serves as a bridge between point and non-point sources will be elaborated along with some of tools such as NTT (Nutrient Tracking Tool) and WQIag (Water Quality Index for Agricultural Runoff) being developed by NRCS to facilitate the new approach for improving the national water quality.
Phosphorus Recovery and Upcycling in the Utility of the Future
Centrisys-CNP, United States of America;
Sludge streams in water resources recovery facilities present promising opportunities of nutrient recovery. Brushite and struvite crystallization are two feasible methods of phosphorus recovery. This longitudinal study was completed between April and November of 2018 in conjunction with a Water Research Foundation (WRF) project to independently evaluate the CalPrex™ brushite phosphorus recovery technology. While operating at the Madison, WI Nine Springs facility, the CalPrex process took 10 gallons per minute of acid digest sludge with a high soluble phosphorus content and recovered brushite, a calcium phosphate mineral that is also a valuable agricultural fertilizer. The pilot was built with scalability in mind and the process was systematically optimized to create stable recovery rates during the each run period. Results from mass balance samplings indicate a 42% total phosphorus recovery rate. The implications of this study are that a calcium based phosphorus recovery solution is a viable method of recovering phosphorus and that having additional soluble phosphorus in the system can result in higher recovery rates. This will support utilities in their goals to lower operation and maintenance costs related to high phosphorus loading while recovering a valuable phosphorus fertilizer.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 26B: Collection, Pump Stations and Conveyance
Session Chair: Andrew Matsumoto, Civil West Engineering Services;
10:30am - 11:15am
Sealing the Collection System with a Focus on Main to Lateral Rehabilitation
Perma-Liner™ Industries;
Cities who are trying to reduce costs associated with excessive I&I and/or root intrusion are finding that rehabilitating manholes and lining city owned sewer pipe does not always produce the results they desire because the failing laterals remain an unmitigated source of clear water inflow. The focus of this session is on proper techniques and materials to renew lateral services using CIPP technology with special emphasis on restoring the connection of the lateral to the mainline sewer in accordance with the ASTM F2561 and ASTM F3240.
Key Takeaways
• A permanently sealed connection means service life equals design life.
• Specification is the key to a successful project; ASTM F2561 is the industry best practice standard.
11:15am - 12:00pm
One Liner to Rule Them All
1Jacobs, United States of America; 2Parametrix; 3King County WTD; , ,
This presentation explores the unique performance parameters of a pressure sewer rehabilitation that experiences up to full vacuum, the current available alternatives and their limitations and what the rehabilitation manufacturers promise to deliver versus what the industry has installed.
King County's Interbay forcemain was constructed in 1967 and consists of approximately 3,000 linear feet of dual 36-inch steel pipes and dual 48-inch reinforced concrete pipes (RCP) between the Interbay Pump Station and the sewer interceptor discharge, with an overall rated capacity is 133 mgd. Given the criticality of the system, a failure of the pipework would result in significant overflows into the Puget Sound.
The pipeline has only experienced a single failure in the 36-inch steel main in 2013. Inspections of the 48-inch RCP mains indicate that the RCP has a remaining service life of 10-20 years, leading to the need for rehabilitation or replacement. This paper will focus primarily on the alternatives for replacement or rehabilitation of the dual 48-inch RCP segment to extend design life by 50 years.
The system pressures include a steady state condition of 27 feet, shut of head of 90 feet, and a negative surge pressure of -25 feet. The site and construction constraints pose further project challenges including a short summer construction period targeting low flows, tidal groundwater table, site contamination from a historical landfill, adjacent rail road, adjacent armory, works underneath a freeway bridge and the need to keep a single main online at all times.
The alternatives considered include:
Alternatives were evaluated on a range of technical performance requirements, focusing on the ability to hydraulically meet the required minimum internal diameter and maximum and minimum pressures. The refined CIPP alternatives were further compared against available resin alternatives (such as "green" resins, vinyl ester, and epoxy) considering their performance capabilities, environmental impacts, historical cure performance and the current manufacturer endorsements versus proven installed track record.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 27B: Asset Management
Session Chair: Victoria Lopez Boschmans, Hazen and Sawyer;
10:30am - 11:15am
Revolutionize Operations through Digital Transformation in the Water Sector (Part 1)
1Clean Water Services, United States of America; 2Water Environment Federation; 3The Water Research Foundation; 4Metropolian Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati; , , ,
Intelligent water systems (IWS) or smart water technologies have the promise to revolutionize operations at water and wastewater utilities. As the digital evolution continues in the water sector, there are challenges (like workforce skills, knowledge transfer, and cybersecurity) and opportunities (including predictive maintenance, optimization of operations and capital planning, and water quality protection).
30 minute introduction – IWS state of the industry in North America, covering definition of the types of IWS technologies (Artificial Intelligence, sensor networks, visualization, etc.), challenges, and opportunities.
30 minute case studies:
Clean Water Services: presentation on Digital transformation journey with integrating people, policy and technology together, and digital solution examples.
Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati: using IoTs and cloud based solutions to monitor and optimize the entire watershed with over 500,000 data points per day to minimize overflows and drive over $100 million of capital expenditures every year.
City of Houston: smart water framework and the pathway to get to smart utility for asset management, process optimization and utility management over the entire metro Houston area.
30 minutes panel discussion:
An interactive panel discussion with top utility leaders and technology providers together to discuss industrial trends, barriers on adopting smart technologies, and ways to get start on the digital journey.
List of potential technologies for the panel discussion:
- EMAGIN: Provide an operational intelligence platform, HARVI, which supports real-time decision making when controlling critical processes.
- Pluto AI: Provide an intelligence platform for water and wastewater plants to reduce energy consumption, predict process performance, and minimize operating costs.
- NJB Soft: Provide a Sampling and Monitoring System (SAMS) software where water quality data is automatically uploaded and stored for easy tracking and trending.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Revolutionize Operations through Digital Transformation in the Water Sector (Part 2)
1Clean Water Services, United States of America; 2Water Environment Federation; 3The Water Research Foundation; 4Metropolian Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati; , , ,
Intelligent water systems (IWS) or smart water technologies have the promise to revolutionize operations at water and wastewater utilities. As the digital evolution continues in the water sector, there are challenges (like workforce skills, knowledge transfer, and cybersecurity) and opportunities (including predictive maintenance, optimization of operations and capital planning, and water quality protection).
30 minute introduction – IWS state of the industry in North America, covering definition of the types of IWS technologies (Artificial Intelligence, sensor networks, visualization, etc.), challenges, and opportunities.
30 minute case studies:
Clean Water Services: presentation on Digital transformation journey with integrating people, policy and technology together, and digital solution examples.
Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati: using IoTs and cloud based solutions to monitor and optimize the entire watershed with over 500,000 data points per day to minimize overflows and drive over $100 million of capital expenditures every year.
City of Houston: smart water framework and the pathway to get to smart utility for asset management, process optimization and utility management over the entire metro Houston area.
30 minutes panel discussion:
An interactive panel discussion with top utility leaders and technology providers together to discuss industrial trends, barriers on adopting smart technologies, and ways to get start on the digital journey.
List of potential technologies for the panel discussion:
- EMAGIN: Provide an operational intelligence platform, HARVI, which supports real-time decision making when controlling critical processes.
- Pluto AI: Provide an intelligence platform for water and wastewater plants to reduce energy consumption, predict process performance, and minimize operating costs.
- NJB Soft: Provide a Sampling and Monitoring System (SAMS) software where water quality data is automatically uploaded and stored for easy tracking and trending.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 28B: Facility Operations and Maintenance: Wet Weather Treatment
Session Chair: Gregg Thompson, Jacobs;
10:30am - 11:15am
Enhanced and Simple Wet Weather Treatment with Pile Cloth Media Filtration
Aqua-Aerobic Systems, Inc., United States of America;
After extensive use of cloth media filtration in tertiary applications for over two decades, pile cloth media filtration has now been adapted for wet weather treatment. This wet weather/stormwater filtration technology offers a small footprint and is capable of treating extremely high solids while providing high quality effluent.
Many studies have been conducted on raw domestic wastewater and wet weather conditions. The initial pilot study was conducted at the Rock River Water Reclamation District (RRWRD) in Rockford, IL in 2014, then Rushville, IN in 2015 and since then at other locations throughout the country. These studies have documented the technology's capabilities to achieve TSS removal of >80%. This high removal efficiency can be achieved without the use of chemicals. Additional study work has been done to determine if the addition of a coagulant will increase removal of TSS and BOD for wet weather applications.
This paper will cover work conducted so far in many pilot studies and ongoing full-scale operating data from installations during wet weather conditions. The focus will be to do a comparison of influent and effluent performance achieved during pilot studies, full-scale operation including a comparison of pilot data versus full scale operation.
Pile cloth media filtration has emerged as a new solution and a promising technology for the treatment of wet weather flows due to its proven performance and very simple operating requirements. For Rushville, IN and other installations, the cloth media filtration technology will allow the utility to treat the excess wet weather flow to a high quality, blend with the treatment plant secondary effluent, and use UV for disinfection. The blended flow of wet weather and secondary effluent will allow the treatment plant to meet its future NPDES permit limits.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Successful Design and Integration of the Murray Wet Weather Facility into the Community
HDR, United States of America;
King County Wastewater Treatment Division has been actively reducing the discharge of untreated combined sewer overflows (CSOs) into Puget Sound. One piece of King County's CSO program is the new Murray Wet Weather Facility which minimizes CSOs from the Murray basin in West Seattle, Washington. During heavy rain, the existing Murray Avenue Pump Station capacity was previously exceeded, resulting in untreated CSOs into Puget Sound. The new 1-million-gallon storage tank reduces yearly CSO events from five to one, meeting Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Consent Decree requirements and improving Puget Sound water quality.
Using a unique, circular-shape, gravity-fed storage tank, automated cleaning system and odor control system; the facility efficiently meets project requirements while blending into the neighborhood. The circular shape allowed the new facility to be constructed on a limited site without the need to acquire adjacent property rights for excavation support, while utilizing an efficient structural design in challenging geologic conditions.
Extensive community involvement—including public meetings, a charrette process and advisory groups—reduced visual impacts even with the aggressive design schedule driven by EPA Consent Decree requirements. The facility encourages public access, improves connectivity and enhances environmental stewardship with a green roof, bioretention swales and permeable pavement to treat stormwater runoff. Artwork creates a "Mountains to Sound" theme, a metaphor for water's journey from the Cascade Mountains to the Puget Sound shoreline, a journey reflected in the facility's use. This award-winning project opened to an enamored crowd and the facility is a model for enhancing the environment and infrastructure while creating a destination for residents and the local community.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 29B: Regulatory Challenges
Session Chair: Eric Roundy, Keller Associates, Inc.;
10:30am - 11:15am
Not Just Clean Water: How Clean Air Act Enforcement Changes Odor Control Treatment and Plant Operations
HDR, United States of America;
Washington State includes a variety of Clean Air Agencies (CAA) that work to enforce provisions of the Clean Air Act. Unlike application of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which has spurred much of modern wastewater treatment and reuse, air emissions from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are normally considered a secondary issue in comparison with meeting the applicable effluent discharge permit. The level of focus on air treatment systems varies widely between municipalities (whether odor control or exhaust emissions from boilers, digesters, etc.), depending on many local factors and potential impacts to neighbors.
In many cases, designs for odor control systems follow industry standards that are common in many states (WEF MOP 25, etc.), with custom tailored application to site specific concerns. How a CAA can regulate an odor control design (and operation) is less well understood when compared to how an agency like the Department of Ecology regulates wastewater treatment designs. This presentation is intended to help bridge this knowledge gap by addressing the following key topics from both an engineering and operations perspective:
· Examples of key parts of CAA regulations and how they have been traditionally applied.
· Recent trends in regulatory enforcement that may shift expectations for redundancy and reliability in traditional odor control treatment systems.
· How design and operation of odor control systems will need to account for permitting and enforcement standards related to clean air requirements.
· Discussing how municipalities can tailor air emission permits to provide greater flexibility in operation and maintenance and engage a local CAA (or similar body) to better manage expectations.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Complexities of Sewage Sludge Incinerator Rules - Utilities Bridge the Gap to Share the Burn Pain
1City of Vancouver, United States of America; 2Coal Creek Environmental Associates; 3City of Edmonds; , ,
With EPA's Federal Implementation Plan for Sewage Sludge Incinerators, as codified in 40 CFR 62 Subpart LLL, Sewage Sludge Incinerator (SSI) Operators have struggled with understanding the complex air emissions regulations, reliably attaining the performance criteria and reporting results with confidence.
SSI Operators in Washington state have banded together to share resources and lessons learned to help navigate the regulatory burden. The group has established frequent conference call meetings to share updates in regulatory actions and interpretations, share of equipment, share technical information to help improve performance, and update individual facility status regarding reports and EPA acceptance in order to enable others to be proactive.
We propose a panel discussion focusing on lessons learned, compliance reporting challenges, cost of compliance, and opportunities for sharing resources and future planning to maintain compliance. Each panel member will take 5 minutes to describe their greatest challenge to implementing the new regulations, how they met the challenge and where they see themselves in 5 – 10 years. The remaining time will be open to a Q&A session.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 30B: Resource Recovery: Phosphorus
Session Chair: Usama Zaher, Intera;
10:30am - 11:15am
Beat Ultra-Low Phosphorus and Metals Targets with Reactive Filtration: How Your WWTP Could Consistently Hit µg/L Targets
Nexom, Canada;
With phosphorus-fed algae blooms plaguing many North American bodies of water and the danger of metals rising in the public consciousness, regulators are putting pressure on wastewater treatment facilities to meet ever-lowering limits, down to mg/L. Acceptable phosphorus levels can vary significantly between regions, but states across the US are seeing limits <0.1 mg/L, with some between 0.01 and 0.07 mg/L. Meanwhile, the impact of metals has captured similar attention, leaving wastewater engineers searching for technologies that can hit µg/L metals targets. These limits seemed impossible even 10 years ago but are now able to be met cost effectively using reactive filtration, as evidenced by Citronelle, Alabama and Georgetown, Colorado.
The goal is always to provide the most reliable treatment system while minimizing capital and life-cycle costs of the technology. In this presentation, we will provide a broad overview of various other techniques proposed for phosphorus removal and will then introduce and explain reactive filtration and how it was chosen.
We will include data sets from other installations, but it's at Citronelle and Georgetown where the impact of reactive filtration can be seen. In Citronelle, the installation consistently produces <20 μg/L P effluent since commissioning in 2015. At Georgetown, the system has reduced cadmium and lead levels down to 0.1 μg/L, copper averages 3.3 μg/L, and zinc averages 0.12 mg/L, well below the 0.2 mg/L target. We will break down what these numbers mean for Citronelle and Georgetown, and what reducing effluent phosphorus and metals levels μg/L could mean for North American ecosystems and other municipalities with impending ultra-low phosphorus and metals limits.
11:15am - 12:00pm
What Role Do Metals Play in Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal Process? Composition of Metal-Polyphosphate Complexes
1Black and Veatch, United States of America; 2Northeastern University, United States of America; 3Center for Microbial Communities,Department of Chemistry and Bioscience,Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark; 4Cornell University,United States of America;
Successful enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) systems rely on the function of polyphosphate (PolyP) accumulating organisms (PAOs), and the intracellular PolyP polymers play an essential role in EBPR activity. Monovalent and/or divalent metal elements (Mg2+, K+, Ca2+, Na+) serve as counterions in PolyP polymers, forming complexes with the negatively charged phosphate residues. In addition to serving as counterions, certain metals (e.g. Mg, K) also play roles in phosphate transport, PolyP synthesis/degradation metabolic pathways. However, the associations between PolyP-metal composition and EBPR performance/stability have been hardly studied.
In this study, we investigated the linkage between PolyP-metal composition and EBPR performance/stability using four lab-scale sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) operated under the same feeding conditions but different solids retention times (SRTs). We quantified the PolyP-metal compositions in intact individual PolyP granules using scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX) method. The diverse and dynamic distributions of different metal ions in PolyP granules from different EBPR systems were revealed for the first time.
A significant and strong correlation (Pearson correlation, r= 0.92, p value=0.03) was found between the average Mg content (i.e. Mg/P molar ratio) of PolyP granules and P removal stability evaluated as the cumulative frequency of achieving effluent phosphate < 1 mg P/L. Furthermore, the PolyP-metal composition diversity was shown to be potentially linked with the phylogenetic diversity (i.e. using 16 S rRNA gene sequence) of PAOs. The results evidenced the critical role of metal ions, especially Mg2+ , in successful and stable EBPR performance, and suggested that PolyP-Mg content can possibly serve as one of the indicators for EBPR performance monitoring.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 31B: Construction /Alternative Delivery
Session Chair: David Hammond, City of Portland BES;
10:30am - 11:15am
Construction Surprises: Lessons Learned Repairing the Inverness Force Main
1Parametrix; 2City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services; ,
Dual force mains cross the Columbia Slough mounted under a pedestrian bridge. When the 30-inch diameter Concrete Cylinder Pipe (CCP) force main failed and leaked into the Columbia Slough, flow was temporarily transferred to the parallel 20-inch diameter CCP force main. A CCTV inspection revealed multiple leaks over 90 feet of the CCP at the south end of the pedestrian bridge. Through an extensive evaluation process, the team selected sliplining as the preferred repair alternative. However, once the design was completed and the contractor selected, the team encountered some surprise challenges during construction when they discovered failed pipe supports under the bridge.
To avoid shutdown of the 20-inch diameter force main and any delays delay, the client, consultant, and contractor collaborated to design a unique pipe support repair process. By modifying the existing supports, the team kept the project moving forward without shutting down the force main.
Construction was successfully completed, and flow rerouted to the new 24-inch HDPE. The parallel 20-inch CCP was exhibiting similar signs of deterioration, so the team designed a preventative repair. Crews will begin construction on the parallel CCP in March 2019.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Bridging the Gap of Diverse Perception
1City of Bellevue; 2Murraysmith, Inc.; ,
As Bellevue City Parks progressed through master planning and designing a major expansion of Meydenbauer Bay Beach Park along the shores of Lake Washington, Bellevue Utilities seized that opportunity to replace a portion of the heavily deteriorated lake line fronting the Bellevue Marina and Meydenbauer Bay Park. But the only way this could happen was to bridge the gap of diverse perception of siting a wastewater facility within the City's signature waterfront park. And that's what the two departments of the City of Bellevue did, came up with a win-win solution – relocating a segment of aging lake line from along the shores of Lake Washington onto the newly expanded park with a new lift station completely hidden from view, yet meeting all the functional and operation requirements of an active wastewater facility.
From the technical aspects, this 1,200-foot sewer and pump station project had it all: gravity sewer, lift station, force main, in-water work, trenchless construction under an active residence, contaminated soils, potential cultural resources, steep slopes and artesian ground water conditions. The timing of the Meydenbauer Park project required an accelerated schedule for the sewer project resulting in the pre-procurement of equipment and inter-departmental collaboration from design through construction.
This presentation will discuss the project challenges and how the two City departments bridged their differing and unique priorities and worked together to successfully deliver the project.
|10:30am - 12:00pm
|Session 32B: Math for Operators (Part 2)
Session Chair: Jeffrey A Lundt, King County Wastewater Treatment Division;
Room Monitor: Doug Berschauer, Parametrix;
This is a Training-in-a-Box program intended to be used by other seasoned professionals to bring training to the operators in their communities. To recieve CEUs you must attend both Part 1 and Part 2 of Math for Operators
Math for Operators (Part 2)
1King County Wastewater Treatment Division, United States of America; 2Parametrix, United States of America; ,
Water and Wastewater Operator Certification tests continue to show one of the weaker skills in operators is math. Competent math skills are required for operators in setting pumping rates, process control, chemical feed and maintenance activities. This presentation will start with the basics of arithmetic, algebra and trigonometry, and spend a significant amount of time in developing the important skills of tracking and changing units.
A wide range of relevant problems will be worked through step-by-step to show and reinforce the process. The session will conclude with operators working through several problems on their own and then checking their results and process against the instructor's in a step-by-step review so attendees can see errors or alternative approaches to getting to the correct result.
Problems used have been taken from example tests and actual facility needs.
Each attendee will be given a copy of the ABC Professional Operator Formula/Conversion Table. A segment of the workshop is set aside to review this tool and discuss other references available to the operator in their daily routine.
The material presented is applicable for both water and wastewater operators. Examples and problems from each will be used in the presentations and the attendee problem solving.
One goal of this presentation is to teach others to be able to take the material back to their communities and provide training for operators who are not able to attend regional conferences. All presentations and other materials will be available to attendees for use in teaching in the Sections or utilities.