Stream Discharge

Duquesne Light Company - 1981
Minemouth Bathhouse Facility

• Location: Greene County, PA
• System Type: Trickling Filter
• Discharge Type: Discharge to surface water
• Volume: 10,000 gpd
• Use: Industrial

Duquesne Light Company has as part of its vertically integrated structure coal mines to serve its electric generation stations.  The portals to these mines are periodically moved to minimize labor expense in conveying miners from the surface to the coal seams, and return, each shift.  Most miners change clothes, eat, toilet, and shower between shifts, and facilities are required to treat and properly dispose of effluent from these processes, as well as routine maintenance of the bathhouse.  Design issues with such facilities relate to exaggerated periods of high peak flow, with extended periods of no or little flow.  Issues also exist with high detergent and surfactant concentrations with minimal food source.  It was also desirable to have the capacity to move the facility with construction of new minemouth facilities, and abandonment of the old.  This facility featured extensive foam management facilities, fixed surface biological treatment for resistance to toxic conditions, extensive equalization capacity, and modular construction for ease in moving the plant to successive locations.

This facility was placed in operation in 1981.

Mohopac Village Center - 1993

• Location: Mahopac, New York
• System Type: Trickling Filter System
• Discharge Type: Stream Discharge
• Volume: 18,000 gpd
• Use: Commercial

Mahopac Village Center is a shopping center complex located in Mahopac, New York, built in 1975 and was served by a Rotating Biological Contactor (RBC) system followed by slow sand filtration.  New owners wished to expand the shopping center complex with the addition of restaurant facilities and the existing RBC system was failing, with disintegration of tankage and the building structure, as well as the shaft drive and bearing system after only 15  years of use.  The need for additional volume increase to 18,000 gpd and new SPEDES permit requirements to achieve renewal of their existing permit necessitated a replacement of the existing system while continuing operations.  Site constraints at the treatment plant site left little room for a new facility, but Aqueonics’ small footprint requirements of only 21’ x 31’ tucked into an unoccupied corner of the existing system appendage grounds was all that was needed.

Discharge from the system is pumped to the existing dry ditch which flows into the Croton Reservoir system of New York City, and must therefore meet stringent requirements of New York DEC, as well as those of New York City DEP, whose requirements differed from and in certain aspects, conflicted with those of the state.  Though in this instance nitrification was required to low levels, denitrification was not a requirement.  On the other hand, phosphorus removal to extremely low levels was required and was achieved by alum addition with rapid mixing, coagulation with polymers and low rate sedimentation.  This was followed by rapid sand filtration and both UV and chlorination redundant systems and fine-bubble post-aeration prior to discharge. 

This system was placed in service in 1993.

Treasure Lake Resort

• Location: DuBois, PA
• System Type: Extended Aeration
• Discharge Type: Discharge to Surface Water
• Volume: 250,000 gpd
• Use: Residential

Treasure Lake is a resort community with clubhouse having banquet facilities and golf/recreational facilities.  It was owned and operated by Westinghouse Corporation and served by a conventional steel-tankage contact stabilization secondary treatment system with sand filtration.  The greatest issue faced in operation of the existing system was its unreliability in winter operation, when the tank contents froze solid.  Additionally, Westinghouse sought to enlarge the capacity of the plant to accommodate future development. Aqueonics constructed an extended aeration design of 250,000 gpd capacity, which was to eventually be paralleled by a second connected mirror-image facility to bring capacity to 0.5 MGD. This pre-planning allowed Aqueonics to construct a single-unit efficient design.  The system is of buried concrete construction with winter-covered clarifier units to prevent freezing.  Sand filtration was provided to reduce turbidity to permit levels, and a vacuum sludge dewatering system was provided to produce truckable sludge cake.

Since the design was required to meet the requirements for peak summer use, continued use of the contact stabilization plant during summer usage times in parallel with the Aqueonics plant has provided the needed redundancy of system and additional capacity required to complete the development without further construction.  The Aqueonics system meets winter requirements alone.

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