MORE FROM OUR TREATMENT PLANT IN HOOKSETT, NH

This is exciting, but the NH Union Leader wrote about us as well!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

New Hampshire Union Leader

Little disks save big bucks in Hooksett's sewer treatment

By DAN O'BRIEN

Union Leader Correspondent

HOOKSETT -- A small, plastic disk no larger than a sand dollar is making a huge impact in stopping $1 million in sewer customer money from being flushed down the drain.

The Hooksett Wastewater Treatment Plant is the first in the United States to use it, and last month put 46 million of the gadgets -- known as a Biofilm Chip M Media -- to work at the plant to double its flow capacity to 2.2 million gallons per day.

"It seemed like something very radical," said Bruce Kudrick, supervisor of the Hooksett plant. "In the long run, it was the cheapest option for the ratepayers."

The surprisingly simple technology has been used in some European countries for more than 20 years. Gov. John Lynch dropped the first disk into the Hooksett plant at a ceremony last month.

This is how it works: The plastic disks, each 1¾ inches in diameter, contain a waffle-pattern of small squares, which allow for organisms to grown within. Those organisms then decompose much of the bacteria in sewage water before it moves onto additional treatment. The disks save the plant from purchasing aeration tanks that have been traditionally used for the process.

The amount of sewage decomposed with the disks at the Hooksett plant would cover 81 acres.

"It's a no-brainer for municipalities," said Steven Sylven, project manager for Graves Engineering Inc., which has been a consultant for the Hooksett plant since 1987. "This is the way to go, unless you want to build additional aeration tanks."

Officials said the disks saved $1 million in expansion costs. The plant is currently undergoing its third phase of expansion - funded largely by federal stimulus money - that is scheduled for completion early next year. Town officials have credited the sewer expansion to attracting new businesses to Hooksett, including the Walmart Super Center that opened last year on the west side of town.

Kudrick said he was skeptical of using the disks at first. But after speaking with workers at five wastewater plants in Wyoming and Colorado that use a method similar to the Biofilm disks - called K3 - in the past few years, he was won over. The K3 disks work the same way as the Biofilm, but are much smaller and do not decompose as much waste.

"I went away from the salesmen and engineers and I grabbed the (plant) operators ... because they'd tell me the truth," Kudrick said. "One said, 'At first I didn't want to do it. But after two years, I think it's great.'"

"I think it's going to catch on as soon as the news gets out," Sylven said.

Graves Engineering, based in Worcester, Mass., first looked into Biofilm as Hooksett explored cost-effective ways of expanding its wastewater plant. Rather than taking on a traditional expansion, Graves suggested using the Biofilm chips, which are made in Germany by a North Carolina subsidiary of Veolia Water.

Sylven said the plan had to be OK'd by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

"There's a reluctance to accept the technology unless it's been tested, approved and accepted somewhere else," Sylven said.

The overall project also needed a waiver from the federal government to use the Biofilm disks in order to accept over $6 million in stimulus money, which is ordinarily prohibited from being used toward foreign-made products.