Regional wastewater treatment plants earn kudos
When the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) hands out its annual awards for wastewater treatment plant performance, it always takes awhile to get through the utilities starting with the letter “M.” That’s due, in part, to Metropolitan Council Environmental Services (MCES), which can be called up to the stage as many as eight times – once for each plant in the running for the award.
Such was the case again this year. In March the MPCA awarded “Certificates of Commendation” to all of MCES’s plants for achieving 100% compliance with their clean water discharge permit limitations, and for meeting additional operation, maintenance and management criteria.
Mark Pavlick is a business unit coordinator at the St. Croix Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant, one of the Council’s facilities honored in March by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
The Blue Lake, Eagles Point, Empire, Hastings, Metro, Rosemount, St. Croix Valley and Seneca Plants received their awards at the MPCA’s Annual Wastewater Operations Conference in Brooklyn Park. The awards recognized the plants for their performance from October 2007 through September 2008. This will be the last award for the Rosemount Plant, which closed in November 2008.
Operators commended for ‘outstanding efforts’
In addition to complete permit compliance, the plants also must:
- Be overseen by properly certified operators;
- Submit all required monthly and annual reports timely and completely; and
- Have no bypasses, enforcement actions or inspections identifying significant compliance concerns.
Presenting the awards was Rebecca Flood, the MPCA’s assistant commissioner for water policy, who also worked for MCES from 1978 to 2008.
“As environmental compliance manager at MCES before coming to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, I know first-hand how difficult a job it is to constantly keep your plants in compliance, and I commend you for your outstanding efforts,” Flood said.
25 months and counting
Along with earning the MPCA awards, the plants keep breaking their own agency record for each month they continue in full compliance. Through February, all of the plants combined have gone 25 consecutive months without a permit exceedance.
“Our ongoing record of compliance and earning state and national awards is a testament to our dedicated staff of treatment plant operators, maintenance and collection system personnel, and employees in a variety of support areas,” said Leisa Thompson, MCES’s deputy general manager in charge of the Treatment Services Department. “Their combined efforts make it possible for us to deliver exceptional service to our customers and to protect public health and the environment.”