No sunshine on sewage
Wastewater treatment plant show-cause hearing set for April

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

GALLUP — U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6, in Dallas has scheduled a show-cause hearing with the city of Gallup for April 14 regarding compliance issues at the Gallup Wastewater Treatment Plant.

In July the facility received an unsatisfactory rating from New Mexico Environment Department in six of seven categories pertaining to its federal discharge permit. New Mexico Environment Department performs inspections for EPA to evaluate the plant’s compliance with its federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES permit.

The city also was issued a notice of violation for not having two certified Level 4 wastewater operators on staff.

The inspection was held after a June 24 spill following loss of power at the plant. About 1,800 gallons of raw sewage went into the Rio Puerco and 1,200 gallons of treated sewage stayed within the facility. In a Dec. 4 administrative order, EPA cited the city with violations of the Clean Water Act.

Steve Etsitty and Patrick Antonio of the Navajo Nation’s Environmental Protection Agency have said they have concerns about discharges and spills from the plant that go into the Rio Puerco because some mileage of the waterway is subject to Navajo Nation established water quality standards, and the Navajo Nation has a responsibility to ensure water flowing into Arizona meets state standards.

David Bary, public information specialist for EPA, said Wednesday that the show-cause hearing will be held via closed conference call.

Penalties or fines can sometimes result from noncompliance.

An order that would put the plant on a schedule to bring it back into compliance with its NPDES permit also could be issued.

“The ultimate goal is to have the wastewater treatment plant there in Gallup operate within the parameters of its permit so it is not in violation of the Clean Water Act. We will work with the city to bring the city to that objective eventually,” Bary said.

Leonard DeLayo, executive director for the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said Friday that he believes the meeting should be open to any concerned individuals.

“I think something of this magnitude, when it’s public health, it should be open and they should not be allowed to close the conference call or any other meeting concerning it.”

Regarding the current status of the plant, Lance Allgood, executive director of Gallup Joint Utilities Administration, said Thursday that the city is having independent entities come in and do some evaluations to help them with their process control.

Robert Gott of New Mexico Environment Department spent almost two full days at the facility on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“He gave us some suggestions on some operational issues.

We have Aqua Engineering coming back. They were the ones that did the design for the recent upgrades. We don’t have them scheduled yet, but it should be in the next week or two,” Allgood said.

“They’re going to come back and spend a day or two at the plant and go through it with the operations staff — all the new upgrades, how they were intended to work and function. We also have one other firm in here kind of looking things over for advice.”

Allgood said they all probably will have a little different take on the operations, “so we’ll kind of have to sort through the different opinions and try applying some of those methods or whatever determinations they come up with, and see what actually works best for our plant. Each plant is kind of its own little animal.”

Once they have the evaluations from the different firms in place, the city will sit down and figure out its next step.

GWTP has submitted all answers to questions requested by EPA in regard to the compliance order, Allgood said. Those issues are expected to be ironed out during the conference call.

Regarding the June wastewater spill, Allgood said NMED’s Gott conducted an exit interview and “everything is fine, it’s closed out. We don’t have anything official back from them in writing, but it typically takes a few weeks to get stuff like that out of them. He had some good advice to give us on our solids handling processing and getting the solids out of the process. So we’re plugging right along.”

Allgood said they also are trying to hire some certified operators. “We have a couple advertisements out on the street now. That’s always a struggle.” They have four employees at the wastewater facility that are “plant-related,” he said. “We have Collections Systems people that are housed out there also.” Collections workers typically check the sewer lines citywide and handle the lift stations. “They’re not plant folks, they’re doing their regular duties,” he added.

Though the city now is required by EPA to have two Level 4 operators at the plant, Allgood said they currently have one Level 4 operator directly at the plant and three Level 4’s on staff. They currently are advertising for a Level 4 operator, a plant supervisor, and a lab technician. “The supervisor that was out there recently left us. The lab tech position is still open so we’re still having to run some of our samples to Albuquerque for processing.”

Plant personnel also are trying to determine the cause of chronic odor problems associated with plant. “We have our operator (Robert Sekiya) out there. Some of the people that have complained, he has spoken to them personally, given them his home phone and cell phone number and told them to report the odors every time they occur so he can go visit with them and go check the plant. We haven’t had any complaints from those people that I know of lately, so we think we’re doing well with the odor.”

Asked whether there are any plans to cover the digesters, Allgood said, “That’s part of the evaluation. We have a little bit of money left over from the bond issue but we don’t want to jump out there and spend it until we’ve fully evaluated what the issues are.” By covering the digesters, they potentially could run into temperature issues, he said.

While some wastewater treatment plants across the state have received federal grant money to make upgrades, one of the requirements for receiving the money is that the project be “shovel ready.”

Allgood said they possibly will pursue grant money in the future. “We don’t have anything that would shovel ready at this point. Any time you’re dealing with federal money you have to have all of your environmental documents in place, and it’s typically more than a 180 day process to do that.

“Unless you’ve got a project sitting on the shelf designed for construction that has all of the environmental documentation and all the associated hoops that come with federal money, it can be difficult to spend. We’ve got some projects in the hopper; we’ve made some requests,” he said.

Asked about comments that odors on the west side of Gallup were coming from P-traps, Allgood said, “I don’t believe anybody ever said that. What I believe was said was that it is a typical source of odors in some situations. I have personally seen it.

However, a news release from the city of Gallup said that dried out P-trap could be the cause of the odors residents on the west side were experiencing.

“In fact, out at the old water shop we had some sewer odors every morning. We couldn’t figure out where they were coming from. There was a water fountain that had been taken out of service, and of course, the P-trap on it dried up because nobody was using it. It took us several weeks to track that down.”

When they did, they started pouring water in the P-trap on an occasional basis and that solved the problem, he said. “That is one of the typical areas where you can get sewer gases back through your plumbing is if you have a dried out P-trap.

I don’t think anybody ever suggested that that was where all of the odors were coming from. That’s just one of the possible causes of sewer gas odors,” he said.