Date: Fri 06-Jun-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

sewer-treatment-plant

Full Text:

SEWER PROJECT COMES INTO THE FINAL STRETCH

(with photo)

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

Between 90 and 95 percent of the municipal sewer system has been constructed,

according to John Whitten, senior project representative for Fuss and O'Neill,

Inc, the town's consulting engineers.

The sewage treatment plant taking shape at the end of Commerce Road is about

90 percent finished and the network of sewer lines which transport sewage to

the plant is about 95 percent complete, he said Wednesday.

Beyond the initial set of sewage collection lines approved by voters in 1992,

the town will also extend sewers to Newtown High School and Oakview Road, a

residential street near the high school. Individual grinder pumps will be used

to pump wastewater into a low-pressure sewer line along Oakview Road. The use

of such grinder pumps eliminates the need to build a sewage pumping station.

Approximately 4,000 feet of sewer line will be extended from Sandy Hook Center

to the high school, Mr Whitten said. Work on that project is expected to start

in July, he said.

What just a few months ago was a series of holes in the ground and tanks has

become an elaborate set of buildings, water channels and plumbing lines at the

sewage treatment plant site.

An office building for the sewer system has been built adjacent to a new,

extended traffic turnaround on Commerce Road. In order to extend Commerce

Road, a triple box culvert was placed across Tom Brook, a tributary of the

Pootatuck River.

A hulking emergency generator sits next to the office building. The generator

will allow the plant to continue running during electrical outages.

The several buildings on the site have exteriors faced with vertical textured

architectural brick in earthen tones.

Wastewater will enter a headworks building from two directions from 21 miles

of sewers, flow into a series of oxidation ditches, then into clarification

tanks, after which it will move through a water filtration building where it

will be exposed to ultraviolet light. After being fully processed, wastewater

will flow through an underground pipeline and into a rip-rapped, meandering

stream channel leading to the Pootatuck River. To reduce the negative effects

of nitrogen in treatment plant discharges, the town has installed

denitrification equipment at the plant.

The 1 million-gallon-per-day treatment plant employs "state-of-the-art"

technology, Mr Whitten said.

After completion, the treatment plant site will be surrounded by fencing to

keep intruders out. The plant is being built by C.H. Nickerson and Company,

Inc, of Torrington. The treatment plant represents $8.8 million of the overall

$34.3 million sewer system construction project. Multiple general contractors

have worked on sewer system construction.

The treatment plant is scheduled to be in operation by September 7.

After the new plant is running, the existing treatment plant which serves

Fairfield Hills will be turned off and its wastewater flow diverted to the new

plant.

Four sewage pumping stations are being installed to make the sewer system

function. The pump stations will be installed on Hanover Road near Blakeslee

Drive; near the end of Taunton Lake Drive; on Glen Road near Church Hill Road;

and on Baldwin Road.

After the sewer system is complete, the town will set a time period during

which residential and non-residential customers will be required to connect

their wastewater drains to the system. The out-of-pocket costs that sewer

users will bear to physically connect to the system will vary depending on the

complexity of their particular sewer hookup.

Building a municipal sewer system was discussed for decades before voters

approved bonding for the project in 1992. The system is being built to rectify

longstanding groundwater pollution caused by failing septic systems in Sandy

Hook Center, the Borough and Taunton Pond North.