How many wastewater treatment plants have volunteers coming out to help with plant operations? Next question: How many have a waiting list of volunteers?
That’s the situation at the Lakehaven (Wash.) Utility District (LUD). Wastewater operations manager Chris McCalib has created an environment where employees look forward to coming to work every day and where people are willing to work for free to gain experience.
“We’re a staff of experienced and seasoned operators who’ve been around awhile,” says assistant wastewater operations manager Norman Cook. “But Chris inspires us, makes us excited to get to the plant.” As a result, the district’s treatment operations are popular with prospective employees eager to give their time. At present, four non-paid interns work with McCalib and his staff, learning the processes and building their resumes.
Working with his team, McCalib has created a collaborative environment where people work together to deploy innovations in wastewater treatment and energy management, and where it’s standard procedure to plan for the future.
Broad responsibility
The LUD is a special purpose municipality serving 112,000 people in a mostly residential area between Seattle and Tacoma in King and Pierce Counties. It serves most of the city of Federal Way, parts of the cities of Auburn, Pacific, Tacoma, Des Moines and Milton, and an unincorporated area of King County.
The sewer system includes 350 miles of mains, 27 pump stations and two wastewater treatment plants. The water system includes 400 miles of mains, 22 wells, and 12 storage tanks with 31 million gallons of storage capacity. The average daily pumping rate is about 10.6 mgd.
McCalib came to Lakehaven in 2006 as assistant manager and assumed the top job two years later. Today, he’s responsible for the Lakota treatment plant, a 10 mgd (design) activated sludge facility, and the Redondo treatment plant, a 5.6 mgd trickling filter operation.
Lakota has a headworks with mechanical screens, followed by grit removal, primary clarifiers, a four-basin complete-mix activated sludge system, secondary clarifiers and UV disinfection. At Redondo, the headworks contains a new perforated screen. Then come primary clarifiers, two parallel-feed trickling filters, secondary clarifiers and UV. Both discharge through deep outfalls into bays on Puget Sound.
Class B biosolids from each plant are digested, dewatered, and trucked over 200 miles for application to dry-grass wheat fields. The application site is operated by Boulder Park Inc., a cooperative organization encompassing 14 wastewater treatment agencies.
