WQ0005790_Response to Notice_20191106

To whom it may concern,
The subject of this letter is to address the high fecal counts for our Fish Factory Road wastewater
treatment plant. We struggled with fecal coliform results particularly during the months of July and
August. To our knowledge there are a few factors that have made Fecal counts a problem at our plant
recently.
The months of July and August are the months in which we see peak flows. Our flows commonly
ranged from under 100,000 to over 200,000 in a just a few days. While our chlorine dosage relies on
feedback control from the effluent flow such fluctuations in flow have added to discrepancies in chlorine
dosage in the past. To our knowledge the varying contact times in our Chlorine contact chamber are a
result of the flow fluctuations and to some extent a contributing factor.
Along with the fluctuation in flows we made the decision to take one of our air bays offline mid -
August to maintain the appropriate MCRT and F/M ratio. In putting tanks online or taking tanks offline
we have (in the past) noticed a short-term decline in effluent quality resulting from the alteration of
detention time. It is our understanding that this plays a role in how efficiently chlorine is able to
disinfect/kill our fecal colonies. With this in mind we feel that increased suspended solids in our effluent
may have also been a factor in our consistently higher fecal counts.
To our displeasure yet another determinate in our fecal overages was a piece of sampling
equipment that stopped working after over a decade (or likely two) of use. The meter was an old Hach
multimeter. We purchased a new Hach 900 Colorimeter and it seems to be working with no problem. The
time we spent with a faulty meter was not extensive but did not help the precarious situation of
monitoring the chlorine residual.
In closing we have tightened down on these issues that have plagued our results and hope to
adhere to state quality control now and moving forward.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Von Voigt ORC
Kyle Brown Backup ORC