The Effects Of Bioaugmentation In Collection System On WWTP Operations

By Andrew Newbold, In-Pipe

In 2004 the wastewater treatment plant in the Town of Orange Park had a very unique problem. The Town was in violation of the current Water Quality Based Effluent Limits (WQBEL) permit while they were simultaneously planning for the even more stringent, Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP) permit to take effect in 2008. The Town needed to address both long and short term wastewater treatment effluent quality challenges and they turned to In-Pipe Technology’s collection system bioaugmentation treatment as a part of their action plan.

The WQBEL permit for the Town of Orange Park limited their discharge of total nitrogen into the St. John’s River to 150 pounds per day. Under this permit, the Town was out of compliance about 60% of the time because the contact-stabilization process that they used for wastewater treatment was not designed for Nitrogen removal.

The Town of Orange Park and their Consulting Engineer, Legacy Civil Engineers, Inc., developed a plan to retrofit the three small contact stabilization