Windham Receives Septic Receiving Station Feasibility Study

WINDHAM - If human sludge is your game and Windham your name, you were treated to a sewer smorgasbord at a recent town board meeting.

Government leaders were the happy recipients of a Septic Receiving Station Feasibility Study prepared by Delaware Engineering.

It follows an analysis done by the same firm, last fall, on whether the town’s wastewater treatment plant could accept additional glop from outside the sewer district and its local pipeline without gumming up the works.

The answer was affirmative. Town supervisor Thomas Hoyt, in the spring, had explained the reasoning behind all the research.

“Two years ago, [the Department of Environmental Protection] started to cut back on how much septic from private haulers they’d take at their treatment plants,” Hoyt said.

“It was a shock for everybody. It started a ruckus because it was going to produce real problems for the haulers, needing to truck it further away, meaning it was more expensive and complicated.

“Some area towns got together with DEP and the [Catskill Watershed Corporation] to figure out if there was a way to correct the problem. 

“DEP decided to write letters to municipalities with active plants to see if they would accept the septic materials,” Hoyt said.

“We said yes. We were encouraged to submit documentation on how to proceed. CWC accepted a proposal from us to investigate,” an effort financed by the CWC to the tune of a $50,000 grant.

It was discovered that in order to safely welcome any foreign septic matter, a kind of Mini-Me treatment network would need to be created, coming at considerable expense, of course.

That network would chemically acclimate any higher intensity goop brought from beyond the local district  to readily absorbable poop.

“The idea is to make the bad bugs work with the good bugs, getting all the google gobbles figured out,” Hoyt said in his down-home style.

“An underground receiving station could be constructed with discharge into underground tanks with proper aeration and odor control.

“Once that septic matter is treated and becomes sludge, it can be added to what we normally do here, at the right pace and time,” Hoyt said.

Having factored in all the google gobbles, Delaware Engineering presented their findings in the 50-page Septic Receiving Station Feasibility Study which is packed with pertinent data that made officials feel giddy.

Well, maybe not giddy but it is hoped DEP is, and is therefore willing to pony up the $2.4 million the project is estimated to cost.

Hoyt, in a followup phone interview, said Delaware Engineering principal John Brust, at last week’s meeting, “did a good job explaining all the numbers and charts.

“Now we'll see what DEP thinks,” also working with the Department of Environmental Conservation toward required permitting.

“Nothing is final until it’s final but this is likely to be approved by DEP. There has to be a way to help our local property owners who aren’t connected to our municipal system,” Hoyt said.

“DEP might limit us to trucking septic from within the watershed, which is understandable, and maybe try to get it done for less money, but this is something that benefits all involved parties,” Hoyt said.

The bonus for Windham will be in the revenues raised by intaking the extra slop, money that can be re-invested for other improvements in the local system or perhaps channelled to the municipal budget.

That will be a conversation with DEP for a later date. In the meantime, the Delaware Engineering study states, “the septage receiving station will consist of a piped inlet for connection to the septage truck.”

Further, the station will have, “a metering system which automatically records the volume discharged from each truck, a rock trap and a fine screen housed in a stainless-steel tank,” the report states.

“The fine screen will be equipped with an auger arrangement which washes and then discharges the screenings to a waste disposal container for off-site disposal.

“The septage receiving station will be sized to operate at influent rates up to 400 [gallons per minute]. The screened septage will discharge into a 20,000-gallon aerated septage holding tank.

“This tank will be equipped with a diffuse/blower arrangement to provide mixing of the septage,” the report states.

“Septage will be transferred from the holding tank to the influent channel in the headworks downstream of the influent flow meter. The septage pump will be equipped with a flow meter and a variable frequency drive.

“The [treatment plant’s] SCADA system will be modified to provide controls for the septage transfer system which allows for the facility operators

to limit/control the volume of septage entering the facility in an automated fashion,” the report states.