Retrofitting Existing Headworks - Getting It Right

When a new wastewater facility is being designed and built, the engineers, contractors, and plant operators look for the most effective and cutting-edge solution available at the time of the install. But while many circumstances can be foreseen and planned for, changing regulations and treatment environments can usurp plant designs, quickly make them obsolete.

As newer and more complex forms of treatment were employed, new processes were added to existing systems. Straight-forward technologies such as mechanical aeration, clarification, and digestion, proved susceptible to bypassed debris and sedimentation. As more material accumulates, it inhibits performance, and in some cases, shuts down a process entirely. All these issues point back to the need for increased performance in headworks processes to protect what happens downstream.