Garney conquers energy efficient facility in Midwest City
SEPTEMBER 2014 — Several years ago, public officials of Midwest City, Oklahoma, recognized that the previous treatment plant upgrades to their Pollution Control Facility were nearing the end of their life expectancy. Besides the need to maintain a functioning plant that would allow compliance with current and future DEQ permitted discharge limits, Midwest City also desired to build an environmentally friendly and cost effective facility.
The existing 10 MGD plant was originally built in 1963 with the most recent renovation in 1989. In recent years, key components of the facility began breaking down and replacement parts were becoming extremely hard to find. Thus, Garney was selected to provide new plant upgrades that offered advanced technologies to give the City the energy efficiency that they desired while also improving their effluent quality.
The moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) process was the first of its kind that DEQ approved for use in a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Oklahoma. The technology consists of a large treatment tank subdivided into six reactor zones and two treatment trains. Three high speed turbo blowers are the workhorses of the MBBR system. This blower technology has only been on the market for eight years and borrows heavily from NASA jet turbine engineering. The low amount of friction during operation, the turbine design, and magnetic induction motor combine to make these units some of the most efficient blowers on the market while also having one of the lowest maintenance costs.
A new ultraviolet (UV) disinfection system was also installed by Garney to help lower the City’s operation and maintenance cost. A new three channel, 12-bank system was installed and brought online in May 2014. This new system eliminated the hazardous chemicals that had to be stored and used in the old disinfection process. The new system requires only periodic cleaning and inspection of the UV bulbs in order to operate efficiently. The performance of the new system has exceeded expectations and Midwest City officials are pleased with their new equipment.
Garney is also responsible for a new 35,000 square foot compost facility, which will ultimately produce an organic material that can be used by the general public or by Midwest City to improve their local parks and recreation facilities.
As with most facility projects that Garney encounters, all of the work has been intensively scheduled to not interfere with the plant’s daily treatment activities. The entire project is on schedule to be complete in early 2015.