Greenwood’s proposed $32 million wastewater treatment plant is expected to meet new, tougher federal pollution standards.
David Bowman, vice president of the engineering firm Neel-Schaffer of Jackson, which is leading the city’s efforts, gave an overview of the process to the Greenwood Kiwanis Club Thursday.
Bowman, a native of Greenwood, is the son of architect Charles Bowman.
Congress passed the federal Clean Water Act in 1972 and set limits on the discharging of pollutants. The act is implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Standards for amounts and types of pollutants have been increased periodically, Bowman said.
“Every three or four years we’re going to come out with new limits — new pollutants that we have to treat for,” he said.
He said the latest push is to remove certain nutrients from treated wastewater before it is released into a river, examining the Total Maximum Daily Load of a wastewater treatment plant.
“They’ll go into the Yazoo River and they’ll sample that and say, ‘OK, we’ve got so many pounds of these pollutants.’ According to the law, we’ve got to eliminate a certain percentage of that,” Bowman said.
The standards can be mandated only on existing permit holders, such as Greenwood, he said.
“The new loading that they’ve asked us to treat for here in Greenwood and all throughout the state is ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorous,” Bowman said, adding jokingly that people in the Delta know that as “just old fertilizer.”
Although the system can impose a hardship, it isn’t advisable to fight the new regulations, he said. Greenwood isn’t the only contributor of nitrogen in the Yazoo River, but the city has agreed to move forward on a new wastewater treatment plant that can meet the new, tougher standards.
Neel-Schaffer is working with Hattiesburg and Gulfport. Recently, the city of McComb, another client, opened its new $35 million to $36 million wastewater treatment plant, Bowman said.
McComb, which has the second largest lagoon sewage treatment system in the nation, realized it wasn’t competitive with other cities because of limitations placed on its previous treatment system, he said. To pay for the new plant, McComb sewage customers will face a quadrupling of their sewer bills.
In contrast, Bowman said, Greenwood has already implemented a new sewer rate structure, which will be phased in over the next three to five years.
Greenwood’s current plant, built in 1972, has outlived its 20-year life span.
Bowman said efforts to tie Mississippi Valley State University into the new plant will make the new plant pay a portion of its construction cost. It also will benefit MVSU, reducing the university’s planned cost of compliance by half, he said.
Construction of the new plant is expected in the spring of 2013. Installation of the sewer lines from Valley will begin in the fall, Bowman said.
The city’s existing permit allows it to process up to 6 million gallons per day. The new plant can increase that rate to 8 million or 9 million gallons per day, he said.
•Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
