Morgantown Dominion Post
9 August 2006
By Janet L. Metzner
Bob Gay/The Dominion Post - Tony Shuman, of Bilco Construction, cleans soil from a drill while working on the new secondary clarifier at the MUB treatment plant in Star City.
A $6.41 million water clarifier is under construction at the Star City Wastewater Treatment Plant, Morgantown Utility Board general manager Jim Green said.
A clarifier is a 70- to 80-foot diameter tank made mainly of steel and concrete that allows solids to settle out of the water before the water is released into the Monongahela River, Green said. Solids include sewage and bacteria used to treat the water, he said. There are already two clarifiers — called "secondary clarifiers" — at the plant. The new one will be the plant's third.
"We need another one so we can treat more sewage during rains," Green said. That's because rain loads the stormwater and sewer systems with water, creating a mix of stormwater and sewage that the plant tries to clean, he said.
That mix is often referred to as "combined storm overflow," he said.
It occurs because the city's stormwater and sewer systems were built close together and long ago. Often, the two pipes share one manhole.
Lalena Price, spokeswoman for the state Division of Environmental Protection, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. In a news release, she said the upgrade will allow for growth in the area and will allow more of the clean water to reenter the river during wet weather.
The DEP's Clean Water State Revolving Fund lent the city of Morgantown $6.41 million to help to pay for the project, she said.
The city recently closed on the loan, which carries a 2-percent interest rate and will be repaid over the next 20 years.
A MUB rate increase for customers already passed in April to help pay for the project, Green said.
That was a 23 percent increase.
The new secondary clarifier is part of MUB's $70-million effort to contiue meeting the federal government's plans to eliminate combined storm overflow throughout the country, Green said. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "wants everybody that has combined storm overflows to spend money on projects that will eliminate that flow," he said. The work is mandated by an amendment to the 1972 Clean Water Act.
On any given day without rain, MUB's Star City Wastewater Treatment Plant needs to treat 6 to 7 million gallons of water, Green said.
That's no problem, because the plant is capable of treating 10 million gallons per day. For a few hours during a storm, the plant can treat 16 million gallons, he said.
Adding the new clarifier means it will be able to treat 12 million gallons per day, and during a storm could treat 18 million gallons for a few hours.
But the extra clarifier is just a start, Green said. During a storm, 50 million gallons of combined storm overflow can end up in the river because it can't be treated, he said.
That's less than 1 percent of the 6 billion gallons of water in the Mon River that flow past Morgantown each day, he said. That overflow is allowed under the Combined Storm Overflows Program, a part of the Clean Water Act, Green said.
"For everything we can treat, we are treating it right ... We're going to spend $70 million over the next 20 years to try to do at least primary treatment to rid [more of] the water of solids — floatables that end up in the water — clean it up as best we can," he said.
Plans include adding more devices that remove the large solid items, including some trash, he said.