City of Dayton, Tennessee
Wastewater from the City of Dayton is transported to the treatment plant by the collection system, or sewer lines. Two main lines enter the treatment plant; one is by forced main or pumped, and one is by gravity flow.
In late 1999, I met Ken Brummett when he made a cold call on my facility promoting his Bio-Clean Products for improving sludge settling. After he showed what his product could do by performing a bench test on our return sludge, I decided to try it in a full-scale test in our treatment plant. The results where almost immediate. Our treatment plant was designed in 1972 as an activated sludge plant with no primary clarifiers. Our plant has preliminary screening, grit removal, aeration basins and final clarification before disinfection. The final clarifiers are shallow rectangle basins. Washouts were very common, even during normal flows. Within a week of the introduction of Bio-Clean, washouts where slowing down. Within 3 months there were no washouts unless we exceeded hydraulic loadings.
In the summer of 2005, we were approached by the Mayor to do something about the odor complaints that he had been receiving. I suggested talking to Ken about the problem but was overridden and told to use our consulting engineer to solve the problem. At his recommendation, we started feeding Sodium Permanganate at three locations in our system. Within three months, we had spent over $100,000.00 with no noticeable odor reduction. I called in Ken at that time. He developed a plan using his Revive System to control our problem, and after looking over the system, we added another location to the three already in place. We went from spending $100,000 in three months to $55,000 in 12 months, with odor complaints dropping to a minimum.
3 years ago, we increased the stations from four to six. At that time, we started trials with Bio-Chem’s fermentation process using the Revive. At that time, we did not have the equipment to measure the H2S at these different sites, but hindsight is 20/20. I do know that odors are now almost nonexistent. The great benefit of this has been the elimination of our problems with grease blockages on these lines. We are currently looking at other areas that we can expand the feeding of the fermentation process that are not on these main lines.
In closing, I will say what I tell anyone who asks me, “Does this work?” I tell them “Yes it does for us.” All it costs you is time to find out if it will work for you and your system. Ken and Jon Brummett are very honest and want to help your facility. They will be the first ones to tell you if it will not work for your application. Give them the chance and I do believe you will be greatly surprised with what they can accomplish.
Glenn Fraley
Sewer Dept. Superintendent
