Wastewater Treatment Plant Update – May 9, 2025

Hi everyone,

Time for this week’s update on the Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP)! As promised, we’re keeping you in the loop as we work through the incredibly unpleasant spring smell and keep improving the system.

Good news first:

The long-awaited replacement parts arrived on schedule this week and were installed successfully. We’re happy to report that the repaired blower motor is now running smoothly — no unusual vibrations, and everything looks good so far. Both blowers are now running at 75% capacity (39.5 Hz), with nearly 9.5 psi, which means we’re officially up and running at capacity.

Wait… does 75% mean they still aren’t working right?

Nope! Running the blowers at 75% is how they are designed to operate. Running them at 100% all the time would strain the system and reduce the lifespan of the equipment. For context: at the start of spring, we were limping along with just one blower running at 25%. So we’ve made a big jump forward.

How’s the lagoon doing now?

The dissolved oxygen (DO) levels are finally starting to climb. Last week, we were sitting around 0.01 mg/L, and this week we’re up to 0.12 mg/L. That might not sound like much, but it’s a promising sign that the system is in early recovery. Our target is around 2 mg/L, so there’s still work ahead, but this is a step in the right direction.

How long until the smell goes away?

That’s still a bit hard to predict. We’re in recovery mode now, and things should continue improving in the coming weeks — but as always, weather plays a role. A heat wave or heavy rains can slow things down temporarily.

We’ll keep monitoring and we will be back with another update next Friday.

Thanks again for your continued patience and understanding as we keep working hard to tackle this!