Flush

Flush.

All of us who live in town do it at least once a day. Realistically, a lot more than that. In fact, it's such a routine activity of our daily lives that we don't even think about it when we do it. Until something breaks and then it's about all we can think about until the matter is dealt with.

The same goes for our wastewater treatment plant. Out of sight, out of mind. Until something goes south there and then – if that happened – it would literally be the talk of the town.

Mike quipped that the barbed wire is to keep him in

The other day I got the grand tour of our municipal wastewater treatment plant and received an education from Plant Operator Mike McGinnis. Of all the guys who work for the city, Mike is the grand old man now in his 35^th year of service. He's not only smart and affable but able to explain in lay man's terms the mystery of what happens at the facility below the dam.

Sexton Street Lift Station

The gate where it all flows in

The Primary Clarifier

One of our RBC turbines. That sheen is the "slime" that does the eatin'

Inside the Final Clarifier

That big round building is the Digester

The Sludge Holding Tank - NOT potable water

The ultraviolet disinfecting happens in the right-hand tank and then it is released
into the Chetek River

Follow the arrows and dotted lines

In very simple terms, it's like this: When someone on, say, Pleasure Street, uses their toilet, the waste runs to the lift station on Sexton Street. One of six spread throughout the city, a lift station does exactly that – it lifts the refuse and makes sure it keeps flowing to the treatment plant on Water Street. When it gets there it enters the plant through a Fine Screen and then moves through the Primary Clarifier that essentially separates the liquids from the solids. From there it goes to the RBC Units and that is where the “magic” happens. If you were to google “waste-water treatment technologies” a page would come up at Wikipedia that lists about sixty different terms. A rotating biological contractor essentially grows bugs to eat bacteria that in turn removes pollutants. According to Mike, it's a bit like the trickling filters they used to use before the present system was built – it's the slime that grows on the rocks.

That big panel is antiquated. The newer systems can
be run off a unit the size of a thumb-drive.

After it's spent some time there it moves on to a Final Clarifier where the sludge goes one way and the liquid another. The “sludge” moves to the Digester that operates pretty much like our own stomachs: it breaks it down and then moves it on to the giant blue holding tank in the back where it is ultimately used as spread on area cropland. And the liquid? It moves to the Ultraviolet Disinfection tank where it is “zapped” and then released into the Chetek River, which according to Public Works Director Dan Knapp, is “drinking-water clear”.

The Chetek River has been really moving
these days

Clearly there are a lot more intricacies involved in this process (like phosphorous removal, for example) but essentially this is my version of Chetek's Wastewater Treatment Plant for Dummies. Built in 1982, for the last year or so the facility has been functioning over the design capacity of the plant. On a “normal” day, 380,000 gallons of water will be treated. Just the other day, 500,000 gallons passed through forcing Mike, in his wonderful turn of a phrase, to temporarily store “six gallons of water in a 5 gallon bucket.” Apparently this happens more than we'd like to know but Mike artfully makes it happen which is why we never hear about it. The culprit? These days, Mother Nature what with all the rain we've had and every day lots of otherwise clean groundwater gets processed. That's why Public Works Director Dan Knapp urged us recently to pursue grant money that would help pay for relining the pipes and alleviate a lot of that problem.

Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator, Mike McGinnis.
We should all be grateful that he's on the job.

“She may not be the prettiest girl on the dance floor,” says Mike, “but she still gets the job done.” That being said he is quick to add that we are one year into our current 5-year permit from the DNR and by 2021 we will have to have a plan in place for replacement or serious upgrade of our current facility. Whether we want to hear that or not, we'll be crossing that bridge before we know it and hopefully it won't be over a river of sludge.

Mike McGinnis will be honored for 35 years of service at the June City Council meeting this Tuesday night, June 14, at 7 p.m.