Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
After replacing equipment at the wastewater treatment plant in September, the city of Sweet Home is facing potential sanctions by the state Department of Environmental Quality over two issues.
One issue is in the enforcement phase, and lab testing is underway as part of a DEQ investigation in the second.
In the first, the treatment plant went out of compliance on its permit for contaminant loading in the treatment process. In the second, the city dug a pit and dumped waste material, not raw sewage, from the plant “digester” into it. Both problems arose from the installation of the same piece of equipment.
The city changed out a piece of equipment in its digester, Public Works Director Mike Adams said. It went from a mechanical aeration process to a “bubbler” system. Hoses inject compressed air into the basin while solids settle out.
The digester handles material left over after wastewater has been through two major processes in the treatment plant.
By this point in the treatment process, it is settling out grit and sand, Adams said. “It looks just like sand.”
Normally, water is squeezed from the material on a belt press, and lime is added. The material is put into a truck and hauled off for use on farm fields.
To put this new piece of equipment in, the city had to clean out the tank, Adams said. In a hurry, the city was unable to dewater it on the belt press or add lime, but the city had to get it out of the way to install the new gear
The city planned to take it to a landfill, but it had to be “dewatered” first, Adams said, so the city put it in the pit, located in the treatment plant compound just over the fence from the Pleasant Valley access road leading to the boat ramp.
The pit also was unlined because lining would have kept the material from dewatering, which was the reason for the temporary storage, Adams said.
The DEQ didn’t think it would be an issue, Adams said. DEQ knew about the equipment installation in September. Later someone inside DEQ told the city’s permit handler, DEQ Water Quality Specialist Ragahu Namburi, about the pit.
The city had not consulted with the DEQ about whether “DEQ would have an issue,” Adams said.
“There are no known issues with us doing what we did,” Adams said. “Our intention was and is to take it to a landfill.”
DEQ wanted the city to test the material to decide what kind of landfill to take it to, Adams said. Adams does not think the material is harmful, but “it’s not something you want to play in.”
A sample of the material was sent to a lab last week, Adams said. When the city receives results from the test, it will report it to DEQ. It will take about two weeks to get the results.
Most likely, the city will just lime the material and take it to a landfill in the summer, Adams said. The test will also determine if it needs to be handled in a special way.
One of DEQ’s concerns is contamination leeching into the ground, Adams said. At this point, if there is a problem, the damage is done and any contaminants have already leeched out. The end result will be the same.
Two weeks ago, Namburi visited the plant and inspected the pit.
“I’ve investigated the complaint,” Namburi said. “We’re trying to figure out if it will be a water quality issue or a solid waste issue.”
The substance is primarily solid waste, including mainly grit and debris, he said. There may be other things, like a needle, in it, but needles can be found along the roadside.
The test will determine whether it is “hazardous” or just solid waste, Namburi said. Hazardous materials must be taken to a special landfill.
When the report is complete, it will be sent to Namburi, he said.
He explained the city was in a rush to get this material out of the basin and placed it in the pit to dewater it.
“It’s not the best thing to do,” Namburi said. “They knew this was coming, and they should have planned ahead of time.”
In any case, when it came down to it, “they had to do this as a last measure to get everything else moving,” Namburi said.
His concerns are over seepage of water into the ground, Namburi said, but “I don’t think it would be hazardous waste in most cases,” and it won’t cause any health effects.
Whether that water will reach the nearby Santiam River depends on the geology of the ground there, he said. Without knowing the geology, it’s hard to know how long it would take for the water to get there. If it’s a gravel base, it would move quickly; but it could take a year for water to make the trip from the pit to the river.
All told, the material probably had 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of water in it, Namburi said. About half would saturate the soil, and the rest would leech out slowly with rain water.
With the other issue, during the equipment installation, the city ran liquid from the basin back through its treatment system, Adams said. When it did that, the city went out of compliance on its permit requirements for solids and CBOD loading for a couple of days to a week.
The city caught the problem in its routine testing and self-reported it to DEQ. DEQ responded with a letter informing the city it was out of compliance and asking for an explanation.
The city replied that it was a one-time incident resulting from the equipment installation, and the city did not plan on it happening again, Adams said.
Worst case, this issue could end up in high levels of enforcement and civil penalties, Namburi said. The city underestimated the loading it would have running the liquid back through its treatment system.
Namburi has received the city’s response and drafted a letter to his manager who will revise and address comments. That gets sent on to the enforcement office in Portland.
“This is the first time they have done this kind of stuff in 25 years,” Namburi said. Lacking experience with it, city officials did not expect it. The city manager and Public Works director are taking measures to make sure they don’t have the same problem again.
Adams wanted to stress that neither of these incidents had anything to do with the recent takeover of management and operation of the water and wastewater treatment plans by Operations Management International (OMI). They happened prior to the OMI takeover on Dec. 1.
The certified operators at the plant know what they are doing, Adams said, and they did it for the reasons he listed.
Adams told the plant superintendent “to do what you have to do, but that doesn’t say go out and break the law or anything,” Adams said.
He also said he is not passing the buck on this.
“I believe they did the appropriate thing at the time with the information they had,” Adams said. “Probably what I would do differently is make sure we contacted DEQ (about such an action) before actually putting it like we did. Nobody was trying to pull a fast one or anything else.
“That doesn’t mean it’s the best decision, but it’s a solid decision with all of the information we had at the time.”
Adams said DEQ received an anonymous complaint about the pit. The New Era also received a tip about the pit and the noncompliance on the permit.
“I would very much like to have people come and ask me,” he said.
“Talk to the newspaper all you want,” he said, but come and ask him about concerns, he said. “We’ll take you on tours (of the plants). The better off we’ll all be. There isn’t anybody here that’s trying to hide anything.”