Agenda - Council - 03/10/2015 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Wastewater Services Sustainability The Council owns and operates eight wastewater treatment plants, which process over 250 million gallons of wastewater each day. The Council works cooperatively with communities, regulatory agencies, and citizens of the region to help ensure that costly infrastructure can be efficiently built and operated in a sustainable manner. Wastewater Sustainability Policy: The Council will provide efficient, high-quality, and environmentally sustainable regional wastewater infrastructure and services. The Council shall conduct its regional wastewater system operations in a sustainable manner as is economically feasible. Sustainable operations relates not only to water resources but also to increasing energy efficiency and using renewable energy sources, reducing air pollutant emissions, and reducing, reusing, and recycling solid wastes. Implementation Strategies: • Implement and enforce Waste Discharge Rules for the regional wastewater system. • Preserve regional wastewater system assets of the Council through effective maintenance, condition and capacity assessment, and capital investment. • Accept septage, biosolids, leachate, and other hauled liquid waste at designated sites, provided that the waste can be efficiently and effectively processed. • Reuse treated wastewater to meet water needs within Council wastewater treatment facilities where economically feasible. • Provide industries with incentives to pretreat wastewater to reduce its strength and thus provide the most environmental and economical benefit for the region. • Generate energy from biosolids processing, utilize energy efficient processes and equipment, and reduce building energy use. • Pursue other renewable energy sources, such as solar power generation, thermal energy recovery, and new technologies - such as fuel cells - as they become proven and economical. • Stabilize and reduce the volume of biosolids through thermal processing or anaerobic digestion, and utilize the remaining solids as fertilizer and soil conditioner. • Improve sustainability of wastewater operations, when economically feasible. Inflow and Infiltration Inflow and infiltration are the ways that clear water makes its way into sanitary sewer pipes, takes up capacity, and are then treated, unnecessarily, at wastewater treatment plants. With inflow, clear water enters the wastewater system through rain leaders, storm sewer cross connections, sump pumps or foundation drains that are connected to sewer lines. Private 28