Water Treatment Plant Makes the Switch from Diaphragm to Peristaltic Chemical Feed Pumps

The City of St. Helens Wastewater Treatment Plant consists of two lagoons, an operations building, a chlorine building, and a shop. The facility treats all the domestic waste from both St. Helens and Columbia City, Oregon. In addition, the facility treats waste from a number of local industries.

The plant was using two diaphragm metering pumps to deliver Sodium Hypochlorite at pressures of 10 to 12PSI, and there were several ongoing issues. The diaphragm pumps were experiencing near-continuous leaks, and required ongoing maintenance due to parts failure. The pumps needed to be completely rebuilt every four to five months.

These maintenance issues necessitated the facility keeping a large inventory of replacement parts, and also resulted in excessive downtime and operator hours spent on repairs.