Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The wastewater treatment plant in Garfield will continue to see attention in 2015, as work to improve the facility wraps up.
Last April, a distribution arm was replaced for a bio-cell filter. The arm, which stretches across the filter’s 20-foot tall cylindrical basin, distributes influent and recycled wastewater, which helps with nitrification of the wastewater.
The purpose of the $50,500 project was to maintain compliance with the Garfield plant’s Department of Ecology’s (DOE) discharge permit. Treated water from the facility flows into Silver Creek which flows into the North Fork of the Palouse River.
“We’ve worked to improve treatment efficiency,” said Ellie Key, Facility Engineer and Permit Manager for DOE’s Spokane office. “Now we’re making small steps, working on education with the new operators.”
Operating the system will be Garfield Public Works Director Robby Johnson.
In addition to last year’s work on the distribution arm, smaller upgrades will be completed this year, including a change from gas chlorination to liquid.
“It’s a little less intensive as far as maintenance required,” said Key. “It’s nothing outside the realm of normal operation and maintenance. The idea is to make it more operator-friendly.”
“The bulk of the work’s been done,” said Garfield City Clerk Cody Lord. “From here it’s mainly just standard maintenance expenditures.”
Key has been to the Garfield site four times in 2014, and is scheduling a walk-through with Mayor Ray McCown for later in January.
“The city has been really forthcoming and agreeable, and happy to work with us,” Key said.
The distribution arm needed to be replaced because gears and drives in the mechanism broke down. The force of the water turns the arm, and if the arm does not turn, it fails to distribute the wastewater as designed.
In 1996, Garfield’s facility was retrofitted, adding the bio-cell with rotating arm.
“The design life of a treatment plant is 20 years or so,” Key said. “Not that you need to replace a plant then, but you start to repair things and looking at treatment efficiencies, what’s needed to increase its life.”
All told, the changes at the Garfield sewer plant are expected to be complete in 2015, after which a new five-year discharge permit will be issued by the DOE.
“I think we’ll have it pretty well caught up this year,” said Mayor McCown.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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