Saturday, October 23, 2010
 
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CITY BRIEFS

Monitoring of sewer overflow approved by EPA

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[October 23, 2010]  The Tuesday night meeting of the committee of the whole of the Lincoln City Council started out with a presentation by Dave Kitzmiller and Bob Tackett of Environmental Management Corp. Kitzmiller is the regional manager for the company and former waste treatment manager for the city of Lincoln. Tackett is the current waste treatment manager.

InsuranceSeven council members were present for the evening; those who were absent were Kathy Horn, Jeff Hoinacki and Tom O'Donohue.

The city is required by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to adhere to a federal program for the monitoring of discharges into public waterways from the sewerage treatment plant.

The program for monitoring of combined sewer overflow, or CSO, pertains specifically to cities where sewage and storm waters are collected in one main drain line. Lincoln has several areas where the sewage and storm waters are collected together, which is not uncommon in older cities.

A CSO event may occur during heavy rainfalls when the inflow of the combined wastewater exceeds the capacity of the sewer system and the treatment facility. When that happens, sewage overflow is directed to another location, where it is held for treatment. According to Kitzmiller, the city experiences an average of 20 CSO events a year.

CSO monitoring will determine whether or not the overflow plan designed by the city is effectively containing excess waste and preventing polluted water from entering public waterways.

In 2008 the city was required to put together a monitoring program that would include procedures for testing effluents and submit it to the IEPA for approval.

Late last year, the city went ahead and approved the purchase of the equipment that would be needed to do the sampling and some of the testing as they waited for the EPA to approve their plan

Tuesday night Tackett said the plan has finally been approved, and now the city has two years to collect samples from six CSO events.

During each event, samples will be taken from three locations: Brainard's Branch near Union Street, the Rubicon Diversion Dam at the waste treatment plant and downstream from the plant near Salt Creek bridge.

The procedure for testing will include taking samples every 15 minutes for the first six hours of the overflow. If the event lasts longer than six hours, then samples will be taken every 12 hours thereafter.

After the samples are taken, there must be a period of at least 10 days before the next overflow event occurs. This is why the city has a total of two years to collect from six events.

Kitzmiller and Tackett both said that based on past observations, there is the potential to do all six collections in a short period of time, but no guarantee, as it will all depend on the amount of rainfall that comes into the area and the frequency of overflows.

Tackett said the next immediate step that needs to be taken is for the providers of the equipment purchased last year to visit Lincoln and get it all set up for use. Once that is done, the city will begin taking samples as soon as possible.

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Kitzmiller said it is estimated that by the time they complete the six CSO events, there will be approximately 2,600 samples taken and outsourced to a laboratory and another 1,600 samples that will be tested in-house.

Kitzmiller said the CSO monitoring is actually the second of a three-step process mandated by the EPA as part of the Clean Water Act.

In the first step, the city had to establish an overflow plan and put it into action through the construction of the overflow area.

In the second step, which is called post-construction monitoring, the sampling of the six overflow events will determine whether or not the city's system is effective.

Then the third step will be an order from the EPA for changes or modifications to the system.

Kitzmiller said the EPA will mandate that the city get down to an average of four CSO events per year. Once they make their mandate, then the city will have a timeline for upgrading the sewer system, which will include more steps.

Those steps will include time to develop a new plan and then a series of stages for the upgrading of the CSO containment and treatment process. Tackett said the entire process could be spread out over several years.

For the immediate CSO monitoring program, Kitzmiller said that he and Tackett were estimating approximately $40,000 would be needed for the outsourced lab testing, plus money will be expended for supplies for the in-house testing and some overtime expected during sample collection.

He added that the estimates are not current, and they will be getting updated information to the city shortly. He also said some money has been included in this year's budget for this testing.

Tackett said he hopes that no later than Nov. 15, the city will be ready for the first CSO event.

[By NILA SMITH]

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