It hits the fan
GWTP has its share of problems

City of Gallup Wastewater Treatment Plant Friday, January 9. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

An occasional series

GALLUP — When Gallup Wastewater Treatment Plant lost power last June and spilled 1,800 gallons of raw sewage into the Rio Puerco, back-up generators failed to operate. This month operators must demonstrate in a test to the state that the generators are functional.

Robert George, Domestic Waste Team leader with New Mexico Environment Department’s Ground Water Quality Bureau, said the spill wasn’t due to the failure of a single pump, but to a loss of power to the devices themselves.

They also have had some power outages since then, he said.

The state has not looked at transformers involved in the electrical source supply, but whether the facility has the ability to operate on its emergency generators. Though some of the transformers are old, George said it is not uncommon for utility industries throughout the country to be operating with antiquated equipment for which parts are no longer manufactured or readily available. “What is typical when a significant failure occurs is you would upgrade the equipment,” he said.

Operators of the facility told the state some time ago that the generators were made functional. “It was unclear from our investigation exactly what had happened that made the generators non-functional. The essence of it is that the city had to do a number of investigations, and those are jobs for an electrician to come in and try to sort out what’s failing to engage to bring a particular system online.”

Steve Etsitty and Patrick Antonio of the Navajo Nation’s Environmental Protection Agency said they have concerns about discharges and spills from the plant that go into the Rio Puerco because some mileage of the waterway is subject to Navajo Nation established water quality standards and Navajo has a responsibility to ensure water flowing into Arizona meets state standards.

Antonio said Navajo EPA initially found out about the June spill at GWTP by reading about it in the Gallup Independent, after which his program contacted the state to get information. “My main concern is that they identify these spills in a timely manner before it has a chance to accumulate in volume and travel to Navajo land,” he said.

Etsitty said there needs to be a good set of protocols established to communicate with Navajo “and to recognize us as an entity that needs to be included in the first round of notification, or immediate notification. Once we got the information from the newspaper report, we’ve been the one initiating the contact and the communication. Most of our calls have not been returned or we’re waiting for responses.

“I think one of the things we would be concerned about is if there were quantities or volumes of waste water that were sufficient enough to create pooling, chlorine, in addition to E. coli and other bacteria because of potential exposure to humans and livestock. Livestock have a little bit higher threshold for being able to deal with such contaminants if they ingest them, but if these contaminants are well above their limits in contact, it would be harmful to human beings.

“So if the volumes are such that it’s going to create pools of water that could potentially stand for a day or two, that definitely heightens the risk, and we would benefit from knowing if we got the information in a timely manner. We could put out the necessary notices in addition to anything that Gallup might do or NMED might do that would be tailored to the chapters that would be downstream,” Etsitty said.

The Gallup plant received an “unsatisfactory” rating from the state in July in six of seven categories pertaining to its federal discharge permit, including record-keeping and reporting, operation and maintenance, self-monitoring, flow measurement, and effluent/receiving waters observations.

The city was issued a notice of violation for not having two certified Level 4 wastewater operators on staff but that has since been corrected.

The state does not mandate how many employees a facility of GWTP’s size should employ, however, recent changes in the Utility Operator Certification Act allow the department to intervene should a lack of operating personnel be identified as a cause of non-compliance with its operating permit.

George said the plant has three secondary clarifiers which settle out the bacteria. One of those is down but they are able to run on two clarifiers and still function because the plant has reserve capacity. “I have seen the plant operated without all three secondary clarifiers and still be in compliance with terms of its permit,” he said. “The treatment plant is designed with redundancy so that it can operate with one of them offline.”

One of the brushes in the aeration basin also is down, he said. “I think there are four brush rotors in the system and again, they’re redundant; there are more than are necessary. They actually had two down for a significant period of time.”

While nearby residents complain about odors coming from the plant, two potential sources are no longer online. One of the primary clarifiers located near the entrance to the plant was taken offline more than a year ago. “I would think that would have reduced some of the odor, and as I understood it, the intent of some of the improvements that were made to the plant recently was to take that unit offline and reduce the odors,” George said.

“The flow equalization basin, that’s similarly at the front of the plant, receives raw wastewater. That was online for many, many years and it was a significant source of odors as well. It’s now offline. The main issue that I would say that’s important is that they manage the aerobic part of the plant. That is, the microorganisms in the plant need to have adequate amounts of dissolved oxygen. That’s very critical. And they manage the sludge digestion process properly.”

The plant recently was cited in an administrative order from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failure to submit copper reports since 2006. Gallup Joint Utilities Executive Director Lance Allgood maintains that the reports were submitted, however, the city’s new Level 4 operator, Robert Sikeya, submitted replacement documents in October.

“They didn’t have some of them so we went ahead and did replacements. I don’t think we ever found the originals but we had all of the analytical data so we just forwarded the reports on,” Allgood said Monday.

Dave Bary, public information officer for EPA Region 6 said he is unable to comment on documents submitted by the city because the matter remains under enforcement review by EPA.

George said two different agencies receive the reports, the Surface Water Quality Bureau at the state level and EPA Region 6 in Dallas. “Apparently neither one had the information, so I think the order states sort of our perspective on the situation at the time with the information we had,” he said, adding that the burden would be on the city to produce the reports, “but it should be blatantly clear that it is a revision to a previously submitted report.

“I definitely received reports that were originally incorrect when they went through the transition of the old operators that were responsible for the plant and transitioned over to the new operators. It was very shaky for a while there.

“They did assert that they had collected the samples and may have simply failed to submit the report. Not collecting the samples would mean that the data was entirely lost.

Not submitting the reports and submitting it late is still a violation of the permit requirements, but I would argue it is perhaps a lesser issue as long as the data exists and can be evaluated.

“There clearly have been operational problems at the Gallup plant,” he said, but “they invested significant funds and they’ve attempted to upgrade the facility. They still have a ways to go. Unfortunately, infrastructure is a never-ending source of that type of an upgrade. It needs money thrown at it on a regular basis in order to keep the infrastructure in good shape.

“The way I look at this is there is some progress there. It’s not as if the city is sitting back and completely unwilling to do anything to address the problems that have been identified. We’re not out there just to beat them up; we’re trying to make sure that the environment is protected through a logical series of actions. We need them to be working in the right direction and to be progressing, and as far as I’m concerned they have been doing that. It’s a money issue.”