Municipalities wrangle with new wastewater treatment rules

Just ask Lamar City Administrator Lynn Calton.

Lamar’s new discharge permit from the Department of Natural Resources requires the city to drastically reduce its wastewater system’s ammonia levels.

“I think the new permit says it’s got to be a maximum 1.2 milligrams per liter and typically we’ll run about 8 milligrams per liter,” Calton said.

As a result, the community of about 4,500 is looking at adding an oxidation ditch to its lagoon-and-wetland system by 2011 at a cost of around $3 million.

Lamar’s pain may soon be echoed throughout Missouri. DNR announced in April that upon renewal, wastewater system operating permits may contain lower limits for bacteria, ammonia and metals that can require costly system upgrades.

“The big issue in the Ozarks right now is ammonia,” said David Cavender, an engineer and project manager for Scott Consulting Engineers who works with Lamar. The ammonia standard hasn’t changed much, but for many years “it just wasn’t enforced,” he said.

The stepped-up enforcement is driven by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“They’re insisting that the state start looking at it harder, and we’re starting to see it in permits that are issued,” Cavender said.

Also, as of August, all permit applications for new or expanded wastewater discharges will be required to follow the new Missouri Antidegradation Rule, the costs of which are largely unknown.

“Renewing existing permits is not going to be too bad,” Cavender said. “Where it’s going to really surprise people is, say, if you’re in a community that’s outgrown its wastewater treatment plant and you need to build a new one.”

Antidegradation

Antidegradation is the third of three elements of Missouri’s water quality standards, according to Phil Schroeder, chief of the Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Section under the Water Protection Program of DNR.

The first two elements were designating the beneficial uses of the state’s waters – such as swimming, fishing, boating, drinking water, industrial process, wastewater or irrigation – and defining standards to protect those uses, Schroeder said.

The state’s waters are categorized as Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier 3. Tier 1 streams are at or near the minimum standards for water quality; Tier 2 waters – the classification for most Ozarks streams – have significantly better quality than the water quality standards; and Tier 3 waters are outstanding state or national resource waters.

To expand or add a new discharge to Tier 2 waters, the applicant must undergo an alternatives analysis based on affordability, practicability and economic efficiency, to identify nondegrading or less-degrading alternatives to the selected treatment process. The alternatives analysis is not new, but in the past it’s largely been treated as a formality.

“Now the standards are getting tighter, and I think the Department of Natural Resources will be a little more diligent in making sure that people do a realistic analysis,” Cavender said.

Some lowering of Tier 2 water quality is allowed if it can be justified by important economic or social development, but it is unknown how DNR will weigh and balance economic and environmental concerns.

“I know a lot of people think it will be pretty simple … but others have a concern that the reviewer might not agree that, say, providing 10 jobs in a small community is a good trade-off for some minor degradation to a stream,” Cavender said.

The price of growth

A significant challenge for communities is the amount of growth they’ve experienced in recent years.

“Since we’ve been growing at such a pace, it’s been hard for our treatment plant to keep up,” said Bolivar City Administrator Ron Mersch.

In addition to meeting the federal standards being applied statewide, Bolivar – another Scott Consulting Engineers client – is under an EPA order to improve its wastewater and sewer collection system.

Bolivar is investing $2 million into its wastewater treatment plant and will be spending $300,000 to $400,000 a year in the foreseeable future to improve its collection system.

Bolivar’s biggest problem is inflow and infiltration, with heavy rains all but flooding the treatment plant.

While loans are available for water system improvements through the State Revolving Loan Fund, Bolivar chose to go with bond financing through Commerce Bank.

“With the state, there’s a lot of additional paperwork and other costs associated with trying to meet their standards, so we went the private sector route,” Mersch said.

The state lending program averages $80 million in loans a year and can handle up to $150 million, and the program is poised to close on approximately $75 million in loans this fall, according to Joe Boland, director of the Financial Assistance Center for DNR’s Water Protection Program.

“Our interest rate on these loans is 30 percent of what a conventional market rate would be, so it can mean a significant amount of savings for a community that has to undergo some capital improvements for wastewater or drinking water,” he said.

In Bolivar, the plan is to look at 10 percent of its wastewater treatment system each year.

“We know we can’t solve it all at one time,” Mersch said. “We’re just going to chip away at it and do what we have money for and prioritize things and try to get done.”

Other cities with aging systems may soon find themselves in a similar position.

“A lot of towns, if they haven’t been talked to by the EPA, they probably will be,” Mersch said.

The Tri-Lakes perspective

One place in the region where the new standards and rules are being taken in stride – so far, anyway – is the Branson Tri-Lakes area.

Tri-Lakes communities are well aware of the lakes’ importance to the region’s tourism industry and quality of life, and protecting those waters is an ongoing effort.

“If there are more requirements to enhance the lake, we’re going to be in support of those as long as they’re not undoable from an expense perspective,” said Branson Public Works Director Larry VanGilder.

Branson was the first city in the state to put phosphorus-removal in its treatment plant, aand the phosphorus levels in the city’s effluent typically run 0.1 milligrams per liter or less, well below the limit of 0.5 milligrams.

The city of Hollister is likewise ahead of the curve, using ultraviolet disinfection so that effluent discharged from its plant has a bacteria count of zero, said Hollister City Administrator Rick Ziegenfuss.

Branson is planning to expand its Cooper Creek wastewater treatment plant, which means it must go through antidegradation review, but VanGilder simply sees it as part of the process.

The only problem, he said, would be if the review requires major infrastructure investment that would compete with the city’s emphasis on eliminating septic tanks and getting everyone on central sewer.

Meanwhile, Branson and Hollister are involved in a program that could potentially eliminate Class B biosolids – aka sludge – from wastewater treatment.

Branson, Hollister, Kimberling City, Forsyth, Rockaway and Branson West have formed the Tri-Lakes Biosolids Partnership.

Instead of creating sludge, which is applied to farm fields using liquid fertilizer techniques, the partnership is working to produce Class A biosolids, a product that resembles topsoil and is 100 percent benign.

“I think that’s the future of wastewater treatment,” said Hollister’s Ziegenfuss. “I think we’re going to find ourselves going to 100 percent pathogen kill and going to something that’s much like topsoil coming out of the plants and handling it in dump trucks instead of liquid tank trucks.”

The impact would be significant. Ziegenfuss said that Hollister now applies about 4,000 tanks of sludge each year, but with the Class A biosolids initiative, “we’ll take those 4,000 trips down to 225.”[[In-content Ad]]