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Service Authority reports violations, treatment issues and plans to consolidate small plants; sludge press could cut haul costs
Summary
County staff and the Service Authority reported treatment failures at Perkins and Oakland Park, continued reliance on costly pump-and-haul operations, and plans to add a sludge press at Hopyard and to decommission smaller plants as ARPA-funded projects proceed.
Service Authority operations staff briefed the board on wastewater system performance on May 20, describing chronic treatment problems at smaller plants and steps underway to reduce reliance on high-cost pump-and-haul services.
Mark Hambone (Inbowood/operations presenter) summarized April operations across five wastewater systems. He said Dahlgren’s SCADA and control communications work is underway and influent pumps had clogged after a fine screen was out for repair. “We also drained and flushed and cleaned clarifier number 2,” he reported.
Hambone said Perkins and Oakland Park are “on life support” because unusually high fats, oils and grease (FOG) in influent is inhibiting biological treatment. He said influent oil-and-grease tests at Perkins returned values “about 300 milligrams per liter plus,” well above typical allowable limits, and that the plant has experienced exceedances for CBOD5, total suspended solids (TSS), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) and E. coli. Staff are using a cationic polymer to improve settling and have installed new monitored chemical-feed pumps, but Hambone said the long-term solution requires collection-system work, renewed FOG enforcement and regular lift-station cleanouts.
Staff and the board discussed the cost trade-offs between hauling sludge and installing treatment equipment. Director Resavi and others noted that, over a recent three-year span, pump-and-haul payments were comparable to the cost of a new sludge press. Staff confirmed an ARPA-funded plan to route Perkins flows to an upgraded Hopyard plant and to add a sludge press at Hopyard; that change would eliminate most hauling for those plants. Resavi said Oakland Park’s decommissioning and final engineering designs will be reviewed at the June 3 meeting.
Board members said the authority has recently reduced fines by improving compliance and by rebuilding relationships with DEQ. Resavi said the authority had prioritized stopping recurring fines first, then moving to infrastructure investments to address root causes.
Staff also reported an ongoing suspected distribution-system leak: recent data show reduced demand in the Dahlgren system, but billing and withdrawal records did not yet align. The Virginia Water Works Association was scheduled to return for further leak detection work. The board asked staff to investigate whether recent construction near a pump station might have contributed to changed wetland or groundwater conditions.
On sludge hauling, staff said recent haul invoices totaled about $126,000 and that the new pump-and-haul contract approved the same night should reduce that expense at the grant-funded systems. Members requested more detailed engineering estimates for needed near-term improvements at Dahlgren; staff said Bowman Engineering would present immediate-improvement options at a June meeting.
No new board policy was adopted during the report; members asked staff to return with engineering costs and a timeline for plant consolidation and decommissioning work.
