Citizens of Manchester, Conn., learn what goes on behind the scenes of municipal operations through a Government Academy that comes complete with informational handouts, tours and the opportunity to speak with professionals willing to answer any question.
The academy is organized by the human resources department and is held one night a week for 12 weeks. From week to week, participants learn about different departments, including the Town of Manchester Water Pollution Control Facility.
“We get a good cross-section, from people in their 20s to their 70s,” says Ray Weaver, process control supervisor at the plant. “And we’ll have anywhere from 10 to 25 people on the tour.” The academy runs in spring and fall each year. In fall, the treatment plant is the first on the list, so tours can be done before the weather gets too cold. In spring, it is the last stop, when the days are longer. Fall or spring, attendees see what comes into the plant, where the effluent goes, and all the processes in between.
Unsung heroes
Participants are prepped before they visit the plant. Each receives a binder stocked with a PowerPoint presentation that details each treatment process. Visitors follow along in their notes as they tour the plant, flipping pages, and smelling and hearing what can’t be conveyed through a paper presentation.
In each phase of the process, starting with the pretreatment room, where they see the raw sewage and impressive auger, Weaver encourages them to engage their senses. “I ask them to remember the flavor of this room,” Weaver says. “By the end of the tour, I ask them to remember the beginning and what the flavor was — what came into the facility.”
After the tour, the students have time to think about what they’ve learned. “We have them sit in the break room, and we project a microscopic slide on the wall,” says Weaver. “A rotifer that’s 6 feet long and moving projects on the wall. It gets their attention.”
Then Weaver points to a smaller bacterium and says, “That’s what’s doing our work for us. The biological process is mind-blowing.” There’s even a slide in the notebook that includes a page with several pictures of microorganisms with the title, “Unsung Heroes.”
Beyond the treatment plant, visitors see the plant’s outfall and the receiving water, the Hockanum River, teeming with life. “In 2002, a video camera was put in at the outfall pipe into the mouth of the river,” says Mike Emond, plant superintendent. “Visitors can see the fish feeding. We have bluegills and bass, rainbow and brown trout. It’s quite a scene.”
Eye opening
Weaver and Emond then go further, giving a history lesson in U.S. water regulation and other topics. “We explain that before 1976 and the Clean Water Act, water from primary treatment went to the river,” says Emond. “They begin to understand the Clean Water Act and can see what it’s done. We dip directly out of the effluent, and they can’t get over the clarity.”
Attitudes change by the time visitors leave the plant. Some on the tour are college graduates of environmental programs that have never touched on wastewater. “It’s a throwback,” says Weaver. “We explain that we’re not polluters. We take a nasty raw product and produce beneficial solids and effluent.”
Then the two touch on new challenges facing pollution control facilities. Treatment plants all over the country are looking to reduce pharmaceuticals in effluent — an expensive process. Weaver hopes visitors will take what they learn back to local pharmacies and talk to them about offering disposal options for unused medications.
In all, a great deal of information is conveyed. The tour is scheduled to last from 6 to 8 p.m., but it usually goes well beyond. “I don’t know if we’ve ever left before 9 p.m.,” says Weaver. “We’ll have conversations as we’re leaving, out in the parking lot, and finally we tell them that we need to go home.”
Showing the students
The tour isn’t only for adults in the Government Academy. A local advanced placement biology teacher brings students each year. But besides describing the process, Weaver and Emond talk about their jobs, the responsibilities, and the rewards, and tell about careers in wastewater treatment.
“We’re like microbial trainers,” says Weaver. “We give them a place to live, food to eat, and oxygen to breathe. We keep them as happy as possible. We explain that by changing their environment, we can change what microbes do.” And with that, they hope to encourage the next generation of treatment plant operators.
