TORRINGTON – Weather events in 2016 were unfortunately, a local anomaly. The rain events in May, but more importantly the substantial downpour in June contributed to major flooding of the storm sewer which in turn surcharged the sanitary sewer due to intrusion. In excess of 13 million gallons more wastewater was treated in the Wastewater Treatment Plant than the previous year, largely due to storm water intrusion that occurs during rain events.
The city’s four wells ran 7676.5 hours, producing almost 580 million gallons of water. More than 522 million gallons of water were treated, using 6,269 gallons of chlorine.
The distribution crew completed more than 111 jobs and excavations, which included service line, valve, hydrant replacements and main line repairs. An interesting note – the city sits on top of 52.3 miles of various sizes and composition of water distribution lines. The gallon equivalent of water, at any given time in this distribution system, is 2,363,595 gallons.
Of the 47 miles of sewer lines, the collections crew cleaned 15.59 miles and video inspected 2.65 miles. A daily average of 720,000 gallons of sewage is conveyed by gravity through this conventional, underground carriage system to be treated at the Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The plant consists of a grinder to reduce the solid waste into smaller pieces. The waste is moved by pumps to an aerated lagoon system. The treated effluent takes seven days to move through the three aerated ponds and into the polishing pond, where it remains for 14 days.
After this process, almost 247 million gallons of treated effluent was discharged back to the river to be used over and over again.
On the water side, operators took 84 bacteriological samples, 20 lead and copper, two radionuclide, three nitrates, two VOC, SOC and IOC’s, taken every three years, GE quarterly full analysis, and multiple process control samples. On the wastewater side, 260 E.coli, two selenium, two dissolved arsenic, 12 uranium, 12 total suspended solids, two nitrate, 12 ammonia, 29 BOD’s, four whole effluent toxicity tests, and BOD, pH, and H2S testing of the sewer from WMCI.
With regular evaluation and maintenance of the distribution and collections system, we can ensure that they are viable components for their projected
useful life.
