It’s KETK in Nacogdoches, Texas. The Nacogdoches Wastewater Treatment Plant said they are back on track with their process of getting rid of extra water after last week’s heavy rain.
The plant said that too much rain water was picked up during the storms, so to stop the overflow, the facility went into Emergency Bypass Mode.
“If we couldn’t bypass, our ponds would eventually overflow,” said Case Opperman, who is in charge of public works for the city of Nacogdoches.
As of now, the plant uses about 9 million gallons of water every day. However, after last week’s storms, 18 million gallons were in their system.
Opperman said that entering emergency mode was very important to make sure that everyone was safe.
“That load could damage our equipment if we don’t bypass it and take it off of our main treatment process,” Opperman said. Even worse, it can flush some of the biosolids we use to clean up the waste water out into the environment, which will take a lot of work to clean up.
The sewer plant said that when Emergency Bypass Mode is on, all the extra water that can’t be handled is dumped into a nearby stream.
“That 95% of water that doesn’t get treated is storm water,” Opperman said. “The water is not damaged.”
The building is still damaged even after the rain stops.
“We are still getting a lot of water coming into the plant for a few days after that because the drainage areas are still flowing down,” Opperman said.
The storm water is drained until the building can handle a gallon amount of water.
When Opperman said there was heavy rain coming, he said to always keep an eye out for it.
“We do what we can,” Opperman mentioned. “When these levels start to go up, you start to think about having to bypass if we have to.”
The center is only working at 75% strength right now because some of its equipment is broken. The center should be back to full strength by October, according to the people in charge.
