Title
Discussion and update regarding the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant Current Operations.
Summary
The City received a letter from the EPA detailing violations from the Central WWTP, of which the majority of the findings are the same as the TCEQ letter that was communicated to Council previously; however as EPA has ultimate primacy over NPDES permits and is who we submit the monthly Discharge Monitoring Report to, it would make sense that we would get a letter from them some time either before or after the TCEQ letter we received. The effluent violations for calendar year 2020 were due to various equipment and component failures over the course of the year. Those equipment and component failures were filter media cloth that had been damaged due to improper operation of the previous cloth media filters as well as an over-chlorinating of the filter cloth which reduced the life span of the media. As this filter cloth had significant damage, it needed to be replaced at the beginning of calendar year 2020. This filter cloth media had caused exceedances in total suspended solids in January, February, and March of calendar year 2020. After the filter cloth was replaced in April/May 2020, the total suspended solid levels returned to well below permit levels.
After this, the only issue that was still ongoing (and continues to be ongoing) is the annual average flow through the plant. This flow exceedance is something that will be brought back into compliance after the Phase I Central WWTP expansion is completed which will bring the permitted flow to 7.25 MGD. The flow may again be a challenge later in the Phase II expansion as our current average plant flows are ranging between 6.2-6.5 MGD. This would put us at roughly 85% of our Phase I expansion permitted flow at the completion of the current Phase I expansion. Some of the flow pressure will be relieved once the Wilbarger WWTP is brought online in 2024. In regards to the ammonia exceedances that were...
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