Hurricane or Severe Storm upset recovery issues
Spring and Fall, although usually very pleasant temperature wise, can also bring storms with massive destructive powers. Nothing is clearer than the power of the hurricanes that seem to consistently remind us lately of Mother Nature.

How can this impact your wastewater treatment plant?

A number of ways- beyond physical destruction, the storm can also impact how quickly you can return your plant back to normal. What are some of the issues that might occur from severe storms?

• Influent flow increases due to rain water

  • -BOD

    -TSS

    -Hydraulic washout

    -Nutrients

• Loss of Power

  • -Aeration

    -Pumps

    -Clarifiers

    -Sludge handling

• Influent flow shut downs due to power loss and plant production shutdowns

  • -Loss of Food (BOD) due to influent changes

    -Less Flow

• Power surges burning out Mechanical Equipment
• Garbage and Debris washout
• Oil spills
• Manpower
• Equipment replacement and Supplies

Here are a few examples of critical issues that some plants have had to face and how to recover quicker. One of the main things that can happen is loss of power. This impacts a number of issues at the plant. Aeration of the bacteria is many times critical. The longer the plant is shut down, the more septic the basins and clarifiers can turn.

One thing you can do is provide the bacteria short term with a chemical alternative for Dissolved Oxygen. Mechanical aeration is always the best way to provide aeration due to the fact that the mechanical aeration provides two things, mixing and aeration, but for short term emergencies, sodium nitrate or any form of nitrates can provide the bacteria with oxygen that they can use in a facultative way.

Remember, you are not going to need the normal amount, since with lack of power, you will probably not have influent and a new source of BOD coming to the plant. Your whole goal of adding this type of chemical is to keep the bacteria you have in the basin alive and not allowing them to turn septic or for the growth of filaments. This is a quick band-aid, but can help where power limitations exist.

Sometimes when there is a loss of power, the food supply to the bacteria is cut off. Some plants have small generators and that will keep the aeration going, but what happens if they start to starve from no food and die off? Many plants have EQ tanks, primary clarifiers, holding tanks on site, etc. Slowly bleed a small amount of these as a food source into the activated sludge in order to keep the bacteria alive. On the other hand, if you have too much surge and food, divert some of the influent to empty tanks for storage until it can later be bled into the system.

Sometimes there is a surge of influent to the plant and hydraulic washout has occurred or there is just an overload of food to the plant when it is finally time to start up. Reseeding the plant with cultured bacteria is significantly cheaper and better in the long run that trucking in sludge from a plant down the street.

In the first place, it costs money for the truck, the employees time and labor for handling, the gas for transportation, cleaning up the truck for reuse of it original purposes and mainly, their biomass has just undergone some of these stresses also. They also may have filamentous bacteria or zooglea in their plant, and once introduced to your plant, you now have additional issues and problems. Another advantage to using product is that it can be readily available and can be kept on hand for quick response. If a plant is geographically isolated, it may be difficult to acquire sludge from another plant.

Here are some of the Math calculations on trucking in sludge vs. using cultures of dried bacterial formulations.

1 truck load of Activated Sludge = 4000 gallons

(4000 gals/truck) (3785 ml/gal) (5 x 10⁷ cfu/ml -typical plant) = 7.57 x 10¹⁴ cfu/truck

This is assuming the plant has perfect sludge, no zooglea, no filamentous bacteria, no septicity in the clarifier, no foaming and all the bacteria in the MLSS are active!!! Boy, a lot to require out of a normal wastewater plant!

Using biological products that are guaranteed count, no filaments, no foam, no zooglea and all 100% active when applied and also have the specific strains formulated for the exact type of wastewater.

With a 16- 24 hour grow up time period (1.5 logs) you will generate the equivalent of a truck anyhow with no mess, no hassles, no truck rental, no labor, and guaranteed no problems!!!

( 1 lb product ) (50 growth factor)(454 grams/lb)(5 x 109 cfu/gram) = 1.135 x 10¹⁴ cfu/lb

grow up product specification

(7.57 x 10¹⁴) cfu/truck ÷ (1.135 x 10¹⁴) cfu/lb = 6.7 lbs product = 1 truck of sludge

We had a saying about bacteria, If you were to create a team say for instance basketball and wanted to hire players to get the job done, you could have 5-10 of the local guys down the street or one or two Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Who is going to get the job done better? By using dry cultured bacteria it is fast, quick and guaranteed to work without the hassles and messes!

Sometimes excessive oil, grease and contamination may come in the influent streams. Excessive rains can break off chunks of grease that have been lodged in pipes causing overload to the plant. Increase operations at the primary or DAF if you have one.

Adjust your MLSS and sludge age according to the loading so that you can again beat the time and numbers game. Be extremely critical of the nutrients required. This is often overlooked during crisis periods. The bacteria do not care what is going on in the outside world, they still require the "Critical 5" and one area is N and P. If a spill or overload of food comes in, make sure to "spill" nutrients if your plant typically adds nutrients.

Oil spill clean-ups, land remediation, lagoons, lakes and ponds can all be cleaned up naturally with biological products as long as there are no metals involved. If the contamination is mainly organic, to the bacteria it is in reality more food! Although more labor intensive than costly if it involved land, remediation does not have to be thought of as incredibly expensive. The cost of the bacterial product is actually quite cheap. Give them time and nutrients, and they will start going to work!

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