“They raised a big stink.”
That’s a phrase my father often used when he wanted to disparage this or that (unjustifiable?) protest or criticism, generated by this or that person or group. And we certainly understand the propensity, among humans, to ‘raise a big stink’ when we sense flagrant unfairness, or gross stupidity, or glaringly bad judgement on the part of people in power.
But at the January 7 Town Council meeting, no one was raising a big stink about the big stinky smells generated by the four-year-old sewer pipeline that carries downtown sewage seven miles uphill to the Vista Waste Water Treatment Plant on Lyn Avenue, near the Vista mobile home park. On the contrary, the conversation was very civil.
Town Public Works Director Martin Schmidt did most of the explaining, but Utility Manager Gene Tautges also weighed in.
And the Council posed a few questions.
The main problem, as we discussed earlier in this editorial series, is ‘sewer gas.’ The smell of rotten eggs, caused mainly by slow-moving sewage that has been sitting too long in the ‘wet wells’ inside Pump Station 1 or Pump Station 2, or within the 7-mile-long pipeline. When the sewage becomes ‘septic’ — overrun by anaerobic bacteria that thrive in an oxygen-deprived sewer system — one of the by-products is hydrogen sulfide, also known as hydrosulfuric acid. A deadly poison, in large amounts, and an acid that corrodes metal. Stinky stuff.
So the multi-million-dollar pumping system, designed by Topeka, Kansas-based engineering firm Bartlett & West, has revealed some design flaws. Bad smells, and corroded metal parts inside the two pumping stations. And some of the folks who live along the pipeline route have been raising a stink about the stink.
I’m certainly not belittling the complaints coming from those county residents, when I use the term ‘raising a stink.’ The phrase just seems unavoidably appropriate.
The Town government appears to be solely responsible for fixing these design problems, even though the project was originally a close collaboration between the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) and the Pagosa Springs Sanitation General Improvement District (PSSGID), and even though the project was managed by PAWSD staff.
Not that the Town hasn’t been making an effort. Hours of research and phone calls resulted in… well, mainly confusion about the best way to address slow-moving, smelly sewage that is slowly destroying the very expensive pumps in the two pumping stations.
One solution to the problem would be to generate a great deal more sewage in downtown, so that the waste products flowed more quickly through the intentionally-oversized pipeline (built for future growth.) In other words, the Town could inject large quantities of clean water into the sewer system. But PSSGID pays PAWSD to treat the sewage, and is charged ‘by the gallon’ of waste water. So this solution would require a hefty increase in PSSGID revenues, which is to say, it would require a hefty increase in customer rates. I also have the impression that adding large quantities of clean water to the flow would cause problems for the Vista Treatment Plant.
Another possible solution would be to add certain metallic compounds to the sewage as it arrives at Pump Station 1. But the necessary type and quantity of chemicals would add considerably to the PSSGID budget — and customer rates — and would cause problems at the Vista Treatment Plant. It might also clog the pipeline.
Yet another way to treat the problem is by injecting oxygen (or ozone, or both) into the system, and try to convert the anaerobic conditions (lack of oxygen) into aerobic conditions — thus encouraging the growth of more ‘friendly’ bacteria. Friendly, meaning, less likely to produce hydrosulfuric acid.
PSSGID tried doing this in 2019 with a pilot program, without much success. But it seems there are various ways to inject oxygen.
Mr. Schmidt, speaking at the Tuesday Council meeting:
“A new option that we’re bringing before you today is an air-feed scrubber. That’s kind of an umbrella term for a bunch of different options with this. Basically what you do is you take the air in the wet wells and you pull it out using a small fan… It creates negative pressure in the wet well and pulls the H2S gas, and the corrosive nature of that gas, through a scrubber. They have a proprietary media that it goes through… It actually has a chemical reaction with the H2S gas in this pelletized media and turns it into an inert polymer.”
The new option is a series of related treatment products produced by Minnesota-based Syneco Systems.
From the Council packet for Tuesday’s meeting:
The Peacemaker® Scrubbers with Persnickety® Converting Media have been able to remove loadings greater than 5000 ppm H2S. Testing has shown that it can achieve 99%+ average & peak hydrogen sulfide loading removal. The system has no maintenance, added chemical, biological agent or water addition. The media is simply removed and refilled when it starts to experience ‘breakthrough’ approximately every 3 years. The removed media is non-toxic and can be disposed of in any landfill. Syneco sizes the system for the H2S readings at each location, if the system is over-sized, the media just lasts longer. By pulling in fresh air and removing the contaminated air, the system significantly reduces corrosion at the wells…
…The cost on the OPC assumes media replacement every 3 years at PS1+2 and every 5 years at air-vac locations…
The total Capital and Construction cost of the Syneco and Wet Well Wizard Option will be $342,628. The anticipated 20-year cost will be $748,661. The GID is budgeted to have $928,907 in reserves at the end of 2020.
So roughly $1 million, over the next 20 years? I’m not sure if the “20-year cost” quoted here allows for inflation, but according to my pocket calculator, this solution would add about $65 a year to each downtown household’s sewer bill.
Doing nothing at all, would cost the customers a lot more in the long run, I suspect.
Still, we don’t know for sure if this system would solve the problems…