Client:
City of Jackson

Completed:
April 2019

In 2017 Aquality Water Management (AWM) was first contacted by the City to assist them with their SSMP reporting and SOP’s.

At that time the City was entering into an upgrade of their aging wastewater treatment plant, to better meet the new permit conditions. Shortly after starting to help the City with the SSMP, their Chief Plant Operator (CPO) retired leaving them with no CPO in charge.

The City Management then approached AWM to see if we would be willing to temporarily become their CPO for at least the duration of the construction upgrade of their wastewater facility.

AWM entered into a contract operations agreement and became their official CPO late 2017. There were several challenges that we were met with when we took over as CPO of their wastewater treatment plant (WWTP).

When AWM started into the operations contract with the City, the treatment plant was not consistently meeting their effluent nitrate limits. There were limitations with their current effluent filtration system and with their chlorination/dichlorination system. The aerators located in their oxidation ditches were also failing.

As a result of the deteriorating aerators, AWM worked with the contractor performing the construction upgrades to change out the aerators on the oxidation ditches months ahead of schedule while keeping the plant in compliance. This benefited the City and the contractor’s interests.

The chlorination/dichlorination system required a great deal of attention to keep it working in a decent manner. AWM worked with controls system’s personnel to modify the SCADA programming to better control the chemical dosing. As a result, we were eventually able to prevent the wide swings with the dosing and the effluent pH swings that had been occurring.

As the WWTP upgrade continued we put new equipment online and removed old equipment from service for the contactor to demolish, while still maintaining effluent limit compliance.

The following items are upgrades at the City’s WWTP, Which AWM participated in coordinating and commissioning:

  • Aerator replacement for the oxidation ditches (see above)
  • Replacement of RAS Pumps
  • Plant Drain Pump Station replacement
  • Emergency Generator replacement
  • Clarifier Weir leveling and cleaning
  • Replacement Tertiary Filters
  • Rehab of Reclaimed Water Pumps
  • Belt Press replacement with a Screw Press
  • Old Cl2/SO2 Disinfection system replacement with UV Disinfection
  • Evoqua Control System for oxidation ditch nitrification denitrification
  • Operational pH Control for process control
  • SCADA Controls upgrades
  • LED Plant Lighting upgrade
  • Influent Screen rehab

Because the water sources within the foothills are predominantly from snow melt, they are generally quite low in alkalinity. We determined that the plant influent alkalinity levels were quite low which also carried on through the other plant processes. This lower alkalinity level contributed to several operation problems.

When using the plants old disinfection system there was a need, to also use caustic for pH control of the plant effluent. As a result of the low influent alkalinity and the difficulty of maintaining good pH levels in the effluent, we increased the influent chemical dosing of magnesium hydroxide. This greatly improved the nitrification/denitrification process and minimized the addition of the caustic addition to the plant effluent for pH control.

AWM also helped develop SOP’s for the laboratory and plant operations and updated their online CMMs system with the new equipment while removing the old redundant equipment.