In October we asked readers to share stories of how their treatment plants have improved their receiving streams. First to respond were Pete Baranyai of the East Chicago (Ind.) Sanitary District and Patty Troy of the City of Port Huron (Mich.) Water Reclamation Facility.
Their stories are inspiring. Baranyai’s already seems to have a happy ending, while Troy’s remains a work in progress.
Saving the St. Clair
“I was blessed to grow up next to the St. Clair River,” wrote Troy, lab manager at Port Huron. “As a kid, I swam every day in the summer. My grandparents’ home was on the river, and I liked to jump in from a pipe that extended into the river from their backyard. We would jump in with inner tubes and float downriver for a mile or two. Many years, later I learned that pipe was a CSO outfall.
“The St. Clair has its share of problems. In 1986, it was named an Area of Concern by the International Joint Commission. Problems include a legacy of heavy industry, particularly in the Chemical Valley on the Ontario shore.
“I have served on the Binational Public Advisory Council for the St. Clair since 1992. We have seen great improvements since, some related to wastewater treatment. While the Port Huron facility has had secondary treatment since 1975, the Sarnia Wastewater Treatment Plant directly across the river (8.5-mgd average flow) had only primary treatment.
“In 2001, Sarnia completed a $30 million upgrade to secondary treatment. On both sides of the river, CSO separations have occurred and are continuing. The St. Clair is a major sturgeon spawning area and home to 91 species of fish. It has the largest freshwater delta in North America, and immediately downstream is Lake St. Clair which is also a major fishery.”
The St. Clair is the target of a Remedial Action Plan that aims to restore the ecosystem. Groups involved include Friends of the St. Clair River and Friends of the St. Clair River watershed.
Suddenly salmon
Baranyai’s story borders on miraculous: Chinook salmon spawning in his treatment plant’s disinfection contact chamber. The roots of the miracle go back to the late 1980s, when the plant completed a $19 million upgrade and switched from chlorine to UV disinfection.
After that, the plant’s effluent stream changed from murky beige to crystal clear. And in October 1989, while leading a group of children on a tour, Baranyai saw a 30-inch fish in the effluent channel. It turned out to be a salmon.
The fish have to run an obstacle course to get to the treatment plant: From Lake Michigan, up a shipping channel that cuts through a steel mill and an oil refinery, up the Grand Calumet River, through the plant’s shallow, 700-foot-long effluent stream, then up a 200-foot-long effluent pipe that discharges more than 15 mgd. Then they have to jump a 4-foot waterfall to get into the contact chamber.
Biologists inspecting the contact chamber have found masses of freshwater sponges, dense enough to resemble a coral reef. Around them swam clouds of chinook salmon fingerlings — proof positive that the salmon are spawning in the plant.
What’s happening downstream in the Grand Calumet River is just as encouraging. Ecosystem surveys have found healthy populations of native fish, including white sucker, smallmouth bass, pumpkinseed, rock bass, and river redhorse, a state-threatened fish that needs clear, clean water to survive and reproduce.
The lands along the river have come alive, too. Deer, beavers, coyotes and foxes, thrive there, along with more than 90 species of birds, including ducks, swans, geese, kingfishers, blue heron and white egrets.
“This ecosystem was unimaginable when I was a kid,” Baranyai told Chicago Wilderness Magazine. “To me, it means that the Clean Air and Water Acts have brought government, industry, and environmentalists together in a way that is really beginning to show some results. It’s great that our plant is a part of that.”
What’s your miracle?
Anyone who makes clean water for a living has to love stories like those. What’s happening downstream from your treatment plant? Tell us how your plant is protecting and improving your receiving stream. Just send a note to editor@tpomag.com and we’ll share your story with readers of Treatment Plant Operator.
