Several years and millions of dollars have gone into rehabilitating the Bradford Sanitary Authority’s wastewater treatment plant on Seaward Avenue. With the tentative awarding of bids for the project’s third phase on June 27, the authority is one important step closer to seeing completion of the rehab project.
Executive Director Rick Brocius provided details to The Era on what Phase 3 of the project entails.
The rehab project has been a long time coming, a requirement of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
“In completing the plant upgrades the Authority is making good on its commitment to the EPA and DEP pertaining to the Consent Order and Agreement (CO&A) which expired at the end of 2013,” he said. “The CO&A was placed on the authority in 2008 prohibiting or limiting all new connections until plant overload conditions could be corrected.”
The DEP had required that the plant be upgraded from a rating of 6.3 million gallons per day with a peak of 12 to 15 mgd, to 8.8 mgd with a peak of 22 mgd.
The restrictions in place meant the authority had to seek approval from the DEP for each new connection.
“Such restrictions place a real hardship on all our local municipalities seeking to promote or attract economic development,” Brocius explained. “With the CO&A lifted, and a good portion of the plant upgrades completed, BSA has been able to easily grant new connection requests providing a vital service to residents, businesses, and industry, and at very affordable rates.”
Brocius said a request for more funding was submitted this week to PENNVEST, which will consider it at its July meeting.
PENNVEST previously awarded the authority $7 million in grant and loan funding for the project; but the general, electrical and mechanical contract bids ended up totaling more than $8.7 million.
“In response to the bid amounts being higher than anticipated, PENNVEST has been working with the Authority and is considering revising their original funding offer to a one percent, 30-year loan to help off-set the increase,” said Brocius. “Additionally, the project is expected to yield about $150,000 per year savings on sludge disposal costs once the new reed bed facilities are operational by the end of 2019.
“With an improved funding offer, and the realization of the future sludge disposal savings, the Authority remains confident that it can adhere to the original rate increase projections of about $2.00 per month to cover the project cost,” he said.
Brocius said the authority does not anticipate the project cost to affect sewer rates until 2020, though he noted, “As it does every year, the Authority will reevaluate its rates at the end of 2018 and may consider an incremental increase for 2019 to lessen the burden for the year 2020.”
Not only will the rehab bring the authority in compliance with DEP’s wishes, “Completion of the upgrades will also serve to resolve a critical public safety concern,” said Brocius.
He detailed the work slated to be done in the third phase of construction, which includes a new chlorine feed facility, new sludge digesters, a reed bed for sludge management, a diffused outfall, a new vehicle storage building and some repairs to the old facility.
Brocius explained that “historically, the chlorine facilities have been located within the treatment plant building, such that a chlorine leak could render the entire plant inaccessible for maintaining normal operations. The new chlorine feed facility will be in a separate building located away from occupied areas at the plant.”
Brocius seemed most excited about the improved sludge treatment process, which enables them to install a “green” reed bed in what had been the Rapid Infiltration Bed facility, formerly used to remove ammonia during summer.
Brocius indicated the reed bed is a luxury for which most urban treatment plants do not have space.
“BSA has a truly ideal situation whereby the capital construction costs to build a reedbed facility will be negated by repurposing the Rapid Infiltration Beds allowing BSA to take advantage of the green reed bed technology for future sludge management needs,” he said. “Utilizing reed beds will also eliminate the need to replace worn out sludge dewatering equipment and eliminate the use of lime as a treatment chemical thereby improving employee safety and reducing operating costs.”
He said the sludge dewatering equipment they will be getting rid of uses a great deal of city water, too.
The new diffused outfall will be installed under the stream bed to help the authority meet its copper limit.
“This new outfall design will allow the plant’s effluent wastewater to mix rapidly and uniformly into the stream,” Brocius explained. “This rapid mixing and uniform distribution of the wastewater reduces the impact of the plants effluent on the stream. Reducing this impact is important for maintaining compliance with discharge limits for both the Authority and its industrial users.”
The new vehicle storage building will protect large equipment from the elements and will include an office to house a computer “where field crew staff can monitor real-time flows in the collection system from the Authority’s new boundary meters, also being installed as part of the plant upgrade project,” Brocius stated.
The project will also include upgrades in the main facility, which Brocius said was built in the late 1950s.
“This last phase of the project will complete necessary upgrades to heating, ventilation, plumbing, and electrical systems, to improve energy efficiency, process monitoring and control, and emergency alarm systems, all of which will improve safety and yield future savings,” he said. “Roof repairs, window replacements and a training room will complete the building work.”
