Felton: New Sunbury Mills pump operating just fine

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Sunbury’s waste­water treat­ment plant super­vi­sor Rich Fel­ton is one happy camper. For months Fel­ton has had to have his crew pull and clean the Sun­bury Mills lift sta­tion pump, includ­ing on evenings and week­ends, rack­ing up costly overtime.

The cul­prit has been dis­pos­able wipes made of a non-tear paper prod­uct that res­i­dents are flush­ing down toilets.

Non-tear paper prod­ucts like the ones used for clean­ing a baby’s behind or wip­ing down counter tops, are dis­pos­able. That means you can use them once and dis­pose of them — throw them away. But non-tear handi-wipes are not biodegrad­able; they are not designed to be flushed down toi­lets and into pub­lic san­i­tary sewer systems.

When non-tear paper prod­ucts reach pumps that are designed to keep waste mov­ing towards a sewer plant, they clogged the pump’s impellers and the pump typ­i­cally fails. The sys­tem moves to a backup pump, an alarm goes off at the waste­water treat­ment plant, and that alarm dis­patches a crew to pull and unclog the pump. If the pump failed at night, on week­ends or hol­i­days, a crew is called in on overtime.

Fel­ton had crews pulling and clean­ing the Sun­bury Mills pump each day – week­ends included – until Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil mem­bers approved the pur­chase of a Flygt Vari­able Phase Pump and con­trol panel retro­fit for about $15,000.

Fel­ton said the Flygt pump has a clog free oper­a­tions guar­an­tee, Flygt will reim­burse the vil­lage if a crew has to pull and unclog the pump; and as an added bonus, the Flygt pump will saves elec­tri­cal energy.

“The Flygt pump has been in for two weeks now, and we haven’t had one prob­lem,” Fel­ton said. “We were ser­vic­ing the other pump every day. My employ­ees got their week­ends back, and we’re not charg­ing over­time to the village.”

Fel­ton did cau­tion res­i­dents not to flush non-tear paper wipes down toilets.

“A pump is just a machine, it can still fail,” Fel­ton said. “If it does we will go out and pull the pump and clear it. What res­i­dents don’t under­stand is that these dis­pos­able wipes can hang up in their lat­eral. If that hap­pens, and waste backs up into a base­ment, it’s not our respon­si­bil­ity. They will either have to file an insur­ance claim, or pay to have the lat­eral unclogged and base­ment cleaned out of their own pockets.”

Fel­ton also reported that the long awaited belt press water recy­cling sys­tem that was sched­uled to be installed at the end of June has finally been installed and employ­ees trained in its use.

The waste­water treat­ment plant uses $1,500 worth of DelCo potable water every month; the belt press that de-waters sludge to 16 per­cent solids is the biggest user of that water. Add in elec­tric­ity, and the plant’s util­ity tab exceeds $7,000 each month.

By recy­cling water at the belt press the plant should show a util­ity sav­ings dur­ing the first quar­ter of 2013, Fel­ton said.

Fel­ton also noted that Duke Root Con­trol would be in the vil­lage foam­ing some san­i­tary sewer lines and re-foaming lines that Duke pre­vi­ously treated.

Fel­ton said the process helps con­trol root pen­e­tra­tion in older san­i­tary sewer lines, and re-foaming extends the process war­ranty to three years.

The Sun­bury Waste­water Treat­ment Plant is a mod­est oper­a­tion. It has an Ohio EPA cer­ti­fied 1.125 mil­lion gal­lons per day design flow. The plant was designed to be expand­able, but that’s in the dis­tant future. The plant typ­i­cally processes only 500,000 gal­lons of waste­water each day.

The Sun­bury plant’s efflu­ent is dis­charged into Prairie Run Creek, and Prairie Run dis­charges into Hoover Reser­voir that sup­plies drink­ing water to the City of Columbus.

Posted by Gary Henery on Oct 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.