MRWA Missouri WaterLines Winter 2021/22

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Bad Behavior Gary Webber, MRWA Wastewater Technician will be sewer cleanouts that have been broken or cut off at ground level. This collectively allows stormwater to enter the wastewater collection system and drowns the utility with water. The results are, backups into homes and basements, sewer manhole surcharges into streets and ditches, lift station overflows, and hydraulic overloads of the wastewater treatment facility. I don’t watch TV much at all anymore. I guess my smart phone is my media entertainment these days. We have emails, text messaging, Facebook, and other options for keeping up with life and the world around us. If I do turn on the TV or watch a news channel it always has examples of bad behavior going on somewhere seemingly every day. Perhaps this bad behavior is closer to home than one realizes! So, let’s look at the environment around us. How do we impact the environment in our own back yard or community? Every day we have an impact; good, bad, or ugly, on our wastewater system. Stay with me! If our wastewater utility was utilized in a manner for which it was intended and constructed, the impact on our environment would likely be minimal. But we see our wastewater utilities being treated with “bad behavior” more then we care to mention. Let’s look at some examples. Perhaps the most common bad thing many wastewater system customers do is allow deficient sewer services to go unrepaired. In our smoke testing events across the state, most deficiencies we find in most communities are leaks in customers’ service lines. Most of these deficiencies

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Let’s look at what we put in the sewer system! Most recently in connection with the COVID epidemic, we have seen numerous issues with flushable wipes in our wastewater treatment facilities, namely lift stations and manholes. These so-called flushable wipes are not intended for the wastewater system. They create huge issues with stopping everything up, causing plugged pipes, pump failures, overflows to the environment, and increased safety risks for wastewater personnel dealing with these ugly issues. This is not the only trash we see in the treatment facility. Some examples of the other trash that makes its way to the plant are pop cans, shirts, diapers, plastics, sticks; you name it, it somehow gets into the utility, but not on its own! What’s the harm? It all must come out, costing the utility money, and like it or not, this will reflect on the monthly sewer bill to the customer. Some utilities install solids handling at the beginning of the wastewater treatment facility to remove this trash. The cost of installation with engineering and construction can be more than half a million dollars just for the front line of defense. This is just one example of how to deal with bad behavior. Money! Your money!


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MRWA Missouri WaterLines Winter 2021/22 by Missouri Rural Water Association (MRWA) - Issuu