SOUTHWEST WASTEWATER PLANT

The Southwest Wastewater Plant was constructed in 1996 and has a total treatment capacity of 2.5 million gallons per day with 1.0 million gallons per day dedicated for industrial pretreatment of the meat processing waste from the Armour Swift-Echrich (ASE) facility. The designed wet weather flow is for up to 5.5 million gallons per day. The compact design of the plant can be tripled in capacity within the same site if needed in the future. The plant was constructed to serve the treatment needs of the ASE, the existing industrial and commercial areas adjacent to Interstate 70 and future growth of industrial, commercial and residential needs west of US Route 77.

This plant was constructed using the Desgin/Build engineering concept to meet the one-year time frame to serve the new ASE facility. Conventional construction of a treatment plant of this complexity would have taken at least two years. The strong waste loading and the long distance to the existing wastewater plant made it necessary to build a new plant at a site already owned by the City. The plant may be the only one in Kansas to combine industrial pretreatment and domestic wastewater treatment within the same facility.

 
The facility is staffed by Kansas Certified Wastewater Treatment Operators and several have attained Kansas certification for industrial wastewater operations. A computer system controls and monitors many aspects of the process. Process control laboratory analysis is performed at this plant as well as the laboratory at the East Wastewater Plant.   An extensive and proactive safety program assures that the staff are informed of the hazards of chemical and sewage handling and solicits their input on decisions effecting their health and protection of the environment. This plant received the Public Works Project of the Year, with a value of over 2 million dollars, from the Kansas Public Works Association in 1996 for it's unique design and the programs of cooperation between the City, contractor and engineer.

EAST WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT

The East Wastewater Treatment Plant has been at the present location since 1954. The complexity of the treatment systems that have been added over the years were in response to growing population and increasingly more stringent State and Federal environmental protection regulations. The first construction consisted of simple screening, pumping, primary treatment, anaerobic (without air) solids digestion of the solids and drying beds and provided about 50% removal of solids and bacteria treatment. In 1968 larger capacity screening and pumps were installed along with an additional primary settling tank. Also at this time a vacuum filter was installed to improve solids dewatering as well as an office/laboratory/chemical feed building. The largest expansion of the plant was performed in 1975/1976. This expansion saw the construction of the secondary treatment systems – aeration tanks and final clarifiers – converted the anaerobic digesters into aerobic (with air) solids digesters, expanded the main building to include two larger capacity vacuum filters. The drying beds were removed and all dewatered solids were hauled to the local landfill. In 1990/1991 additions to the plant were constructed to deal with the issues of wastewater odors and to change the solids process to lime stabilization anticipating the loss of the local landfill for solids disposal.