Maggie’s Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

[armorpl8chikn]

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[IanWRX]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

Merry Christmas from a fellow plant operator. I'm actually babysitting a pump station right now.

 

[KillShot]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

Ha ha...I was watching this movie last night and couldn't help laughing at that idiot.

 

[sam626]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

Merry Christmas from another turd herder. I run a plant in Johnson county, KS.

 

[Kinsman]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

I guess that being a curmudgeon has the effect of hardening my humor reflex, for I found none of that to be more than mildly humorous, to blandly offensive. I guess that I am no longer youthful enough to see the humor that the new generation enjoys.
One thing about old age, though, It won't last long.

 

[steelman303]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

hell, i just helped the cause, made a contribution to society & flushed. keeps everyone in a job i guess. MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!!!!

 

[TypeR632]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

I put up with shit all day in a plant, in a county with the largest bankruptcy in history. Just hope my job is there after the holidays.

Sam308:Turd herder, thats great!

 

[IanWRX]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

The Best thing about this job is people can't stop shitting. There will always be a need for wastewater plants.

 

[ssgp2]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

I agree, but I rather be the one filling your tubs, sink and toilets...

Did the waste part for 4 years and traded the smell of turds for chlorine.

 

[xs hedspace]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

Merry Christmas, from a guy that takes a red pencil, and tries to fix the screwups the damned engineers put in the blueprints to build these Temples Of The Turd. I swear, a third year electrician's apprentice has more sense than these idiots with PE after their names. Say hello to all those "brown trout" in the influent pump station for me.

 

[utahstroke]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

Merry Christmas from a Utah turd retriever. 35 years in the water profession, been good to me. I clean up the water now to make it fit to flush a turd. I could not agree more about the fixing and operating some engineers idea they pull out of thier ass. Makes us god like.
Best to you all!

 

[armorpl8chikn]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Sam308</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Merry Christmas from another turd herder. I run a plant in Johnson county, KS. </div></div>
I usually tell people I am a turd wrangler or a sweet tater farmer(you guys have seen the sweet taters)
Those who I encounter at social events, word hummers is what I call em, get my cultured response that sounds very....scientific.
" Sooo...mmmm..what is ...mmm...your profession Joe...mmmm." I am a Hockeyologist. "mmm.....yes that sounds....mmmm..very interesting."

 

[TypeR632]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

Great engineering in WWTP must be a nationwide thing. You guys should see our headworks. They went with pretty and pleasing to the eye instead of function. I say fuck the engineers and fuck Hycor.

When they expanded our plant, which actually processes less flow now, they put in a BNR which washes out at 16MGD. They also built our filter building on the top end of our plant (highest elev.). So after the final clarifiers, we had to have a smoothing pump station built to pump the water back up to the filters then gravity back down to out UV then to our effluent instead of building down by the finals. You've never seen a flow path like ours, guaranteed. Millions and millions wasted at our plant and plants all over the county. Oh yeah let's don't even get into not having money to buy UV bulbs and ballasts. Rant over.

 

[IanWRX]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

You want to talk about messed up plants? Lets talk. OK my headworks has 2 lines coming in a tunnel and a intercepter. The tunnel flows right to grit removal, but the intercepter flows to a wet well then it is pumped into the grit chamber,and we average 20mgd normally and 110mgd during rain. After primary clarification, it's pumped up hill to our airation tanks which is fed O2 by a ancient PSA system that barely works. It hits secondary then back down hill to our contact chamber. I also run the oldest municipal incineratrr in the US (so I'm told).

 

[Emorse4487]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: IanWRX</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You want to talk about messed up plants? Lets talk. OK my headworks has 2 lines coming in a tunnel and a intercepter. The tunnel flows right to grit removal, but the intercepter flows to a wet well then it is pumped into the grit chamber,and we average 20mgd normally and 110mgd during rain. After primary clarification, it's pumped up hill to our airation tanks which is fed O2 by a ancient PSA system that barely works. It hits secondary then back down hill to our contact chamber. I also run the oldest municipal incineratrr in the US (so I'm told). </div></div>

Sounds like 90% of the plants in the northeast I work out of unfortunately... Wheelabrator employee?

 

[RADcustom]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

Merry Christmas $h!t heads.

 

[armorpl8chikn]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

Could I ever swap stories with you fellers. Does anyone ever ask an operator what they think will work better or does everyone hire engineers and put in equipment and expect us to MAKE it work. That seems to be the thought process around here.

Ian is that sucker a multiple hearth? I ran one of those little over 15 years ago....what a beast, I called it "The Mangler". Run a fluidized bed now(at this moment in fact) and have for the last 15 years, had a major rebuild 7 years ago and the heat exchanger is already having troubles. They bought the one made in China for the rebuild....something told me it wouldn't last the projected 10yr lifespan. I told my boss when they put it in,"So that's the biggest catalog item Harbor Freight carries huh?" Went right over his head.

Our flow is pumped twice, once at the raw building and again at the end of our 3rd RBC basin. Yes we have RBCs

We are currently tasked with keeping them rotating despite the fact that they are past their projected lifespan by several years. They are turned by airflow catching the cups and causing lift. Broken shafts and worn bearings abound among the 152 antiquated units.

 

[IanWRX]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

armor my can is a 6 hearth. How do you like the fluidized beds?
I also know exactly what your talking about with the Harbor Freight thing. I'm down the swap stories anytime, ill tell you about the time that a river over flowed into the sewer. A how we had 4 12" Godwins and 3 6" to 8" Godwins pumping down the river.

 

[armorpl8chikn]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: IanWRX</div><div class="ubbcode-body">armor my can is a 6 hearth. How do you like the fluidized beds?
I also know exactly what your talking about with the Harbor Freight thing. I'm down the swap stories anytime, ill tell you about the time that a river over flowed into the sewer. A how we had 4 12" Godwins and 3 6" to 8" Godwins pumping down the river. </div></div>

Fluid beds have their own kinds of headaches. All depends on whether it is push/pull system or simply push system. We went to simple push system after the rebuild and I like it much better than when we had ID fans. Now it is just FA blowers pushing ~5000 SCFM into windbox and up through the bed. You adjust your airflow to match the burn and allow proper amount of O2 in the freeboard. Using airflow, lance gas, and proper feed, I can set her up to cruise all night without touching the controls as long as sludge feed remains constant. On occasion we have had exceptional high BTU sludge and if the cake off the press is good we can go autogenous but that is pretty rare, maybe a couple weeks out of the year. One great thing about fluid beds....no clinkers around the gas lances from reburned ash. We don't use oil for heat up anymore because of strict air quality regs, even though we have a scrubber.

 

[TypeR632]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

You guys ever seen a flooded pump station? How about one with a water cooled 900HP electric motor? HA HA! It ran for 24 hours half submerged before seizing up. We've had several catastrophic failures in the past couple of years.

Our Influent wet well flooded, we couldn't keep up with flow. We had an 18" hole in the wall from the wet well to the dry well and flooded everything as stated above about the elec. motor.

The same wet well had a methane gas build up, went BOOM! Blew all of the fiberglass ventilation shafts to hell. Shift supervisor heard the explosion looked up across the plant and saw aluminum covers for pulling hydraulic gates and such above our high mast lights.

At our Bessemer plant, I think it's rated for 400mgd, the new lift station floated out of the ground from ground water build up. Heard the construction company only had something like $50,000 worth of insurance

You guys know how to post a video from an iPhone? Got video of the pump running underwater.

 

[TypeR632]

Re: Merry Christmas from the wastewater plant

I know these are shitty videos. The first is the submerged motor, the second is after we got it pumped out. You can see how far the water was up. Let me know if you guys can watch the videos.

Here is the top of the wet well after the explosion.