THE FUTURE OF WASTEWATER
Making every drop count.
What is Reuse?
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Learn about reuse at IDEQ click here>
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Reuse water regulations are established by the IDEQ to regulate how entities can reuse treated water. IDEQ is requiring the City of McCall and Payette Lakes Recreational Water and Sewer District (PLRWSD) to obtain a reuse permit in order to continue operating a reuse water system.
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A DAY IN THE LIFE OF WASTEWATER FROM CREATION TO DISPOSAL
Typical wastewater starts in the home in the form of water from sinks, garbage disposals and restrooms. It travels through a series of piping from the home to the City’s wastewater collection system. This system is an array of collection pipes, manholes and lift stations that move the wastewater throughout the city to the wastewater treatment plant. Below are pictures of underground sewer piping and a typical sewer lift station. The lift stations sole objective is to move and lift material from a lower location to higher location within the system as the topography of the area does not allow for simple gravity flow from the source to the treatment plant. his is your Service Description.
When the wastewater leaves the collection system it then enters the wastewater treatment system at the headworks building. This building filters the larger solids debris via a bar screen that is discharged into the collection system from homes, commercial business, and industrial facilities. Grit, plastics, rags and other small solids debris are not caught in this process as our headworks building is not designed for this. Wastewater systems prefer not to have solids discharged into the wastewater stream but realize this will not be the case and are generally designed accordingly.
Once the wastewater passes through the headworks building and bar screen it is then discharged into a stepped set of aeration ponds. These aeration ponds start the process of biologically breaking down the wastewater organics reducing them to an inert state. Approxitimly 60 to 70% of this process takes place in pond one and about 30% in pond 2. Ponds 1 and 2 both have air injected into them to aid in this process. Pond 3 is the final settling or polishing pond before the wastewater goes to final disinfection.
During certain times of the year the wastewater may be run through sand filters before entering the disinfection system. These filters are designed to further reduce any suspended solids that may be in the wastewater and aid in the removal of certain biological pathogens.
Once the wastewater leaves either the sand filters or pond 3 then it is time to receive final disinfection. This disinfection process takes place in a Cl2 contact basin. Cl2 is chlorine bleach and is a very effective killer of biological pathogens. The recommended minimum contact time to kill these pathogens is 30 minutes.
From the disinfection basin the effluent is then sent to our large storage lagoon. This lagoon holds all of the municipality’s effluent until it can be land applied onto farmer fields. This process takes place during the summer growing season.
In the summer months the effluent is pumped from the storage lagoon then transported to a remote site where the city’s effluent is mixed with water from the farmer’s irrigation system. Once mixed the combined city effluent and the farmer’s irrigation water are direct land applied to farmer fields through a sprinkler system.
At this point the process is complete. For the City of McCall and PLRWSD this is the way the wastewater is generated, collected, transported, treated and disposed of. This cycle is repeated on an annual basis.
TREATMENT
Sewer can come from many sources in a Municipal Wastewater Treatment System. It can start out as domestic waste from residential households such as sinks, garbage disposals and toilets. It can come from commercial business and may include restaurant waste, commercial cleaning solutions and toiletries. Lastly it can come from industrial waste such as meat packing plants, food processing plants, or in our case government agencies.
