Constant Flooding in Texas City Calls for New Wastewater Pumps
About the author:
Kristel Zaman is Americas Regional Marketing Director for Grundfos Americas Corp. Zaman can be reached at [email protected].
Texans who are no stranger to the Texas rains know just how devastating flooding can be. Flooding can happen in the blink of an eye, and precautions must be put in place to avoid it. This flooding not only affects the people and wildlife who live there, but also contributes to major damages within cities and overwhelms the local wastewater infrastructure. Along the Gulf coast of Texas there have been countless flash floods, tropical storms, and hurricanes that have created havoc for the cities located there. The city of Pasadena was no exception. City officials Marco Hernandez and Ramon Baez knew this and were obligated to find solutions to help solve the problem.
Pasadena’s wastewater stream was already overwhelmed with unscheduled service calls to the frequently clogging lift station with submersible pumps. The modern wastewater stream had high amounts of trash, fibrous debris, and varying flows due to the site location near several commercial and trade facilities, shops, and community park. In addition, the excessive water, and debris from streets due to flood events. For the public utility, non-clogging pump operational reliability is an absolute necessity: the safe and predictable transport of wastewater, while also allowing for low operating costs, is a mandatory requirement. Maintenance budgets are set each year based on the previous year’s callouts and staying within these allotted budgets is critical for fiscal planning.
The request to Grundfos was to improve the situation and provide a solution that could handle pumped media with large solids while also delivering flexible hydraulic operations due to varying system pressures. The equipment was also to offer easier service with lower maintenance requirements. The Wastewater Utility Supervisor, who oversees the entire water and wastewater cycle and is responsible for the operational equipment, needed a pump that offered trouble-free operation in a sanitary sewer pumping station with high fibrous debris and solids content while also pumping into a highly pressurized system. Hernandez and Baez were faced with a problem. When a pump needed maintenance that pumps flood waters out of these areas, Hernandez and Baez needed to find a solution fast. They turned to Grundfos wastewater pumps to help take care of the problem. Hernandez stated that the main concern was to, “move the water as quick as possible and Grundfos does this.”
To meet these requirements, Grundfos provided their newest SL pumps fitted with Open S-tube® impeller. To help ease this problem, the new pump was installed in a current lift station that was struggling with excessive trash, with current pumps requiring weekly pulling to clear the impeller from debris and requiring monthly vacuum truck pump-outs. In addition, the site had installed a local measure to mitigate the odor resulting from stagnant sewage in the station due to collecting trash. Neighboring commercial facilities were constantly complaining about the foul odor coming from the pump station. Now, with the new Grundfos pump they were able to utilize the sump cleaning function of the Grundfos CU362 pump station controller. The new pump doesn’t clog and effectively removes the debris from the station, preventing formulation of unpleasant and unhealthy sewer gas, improving the environment for neighboring commercial facilities.
The original lift station was designed as a duplex lift station which had different manufacturers pumps originally spec’d in. They replaced it with a Grundfos SL pump when one of the existing pumps went down. The other manufacturer was not able to supply their pump in a reasonable lead time which made the customer switch to Grundfos. The new Grundfos pumps with the open s-tube impeller have been operating for 4-5 months and without any issues.
As a result, Grundfos solved the challenges at the lift station, and now the pumps perform without any clogging issues. The difficulties with large solids and varying flows are resolved. The maintenance budget has been upheld while also keeping the city’s crew safe. Most importantly, the innovative Open S-tube® impeller has ensured that the modern wastewater challenges did not stop the city’s wastewater from flowing.
Previously, the customer had to pull the original pump out to do maintenance and to de-rag the pump once every 2-3 months. Typically it would take a three man crew 4 hours to complete the task. Additionally, the City of Pasadena would have to hire out a vac trunk to clean the lift station of all the solids once every 2-3 months which would cost them additional money that needs to be allocated from the already stretched maintenance budget. Since switching to Grundfos and this open s-tube impeller, they haven’t had a reason to pull it. They did pull it out of curiosity just to investigate since they thought it was too good to be true and they found nothing wrong with the pump.
With less maintenance with the Grundfos pump installed, city officials have a newfound confidence that the public will be safer in emergency situations. Moreover, the Grundfos pump has lowered city expenses. The Grundfos pump with open S-tube impeller is so effective it is estimated to save the city about $15,000 annually due to not having to constantly clean the lift station where the pump resides. Drawing the conclusion that this money can be used towards more needs for the city.
Since installing SL pumps fitted with Open S-tube® impellers, they have had no need to lift the pumps for unscheduled maintenance.
Due to the coordination and concern for human life by Hernandez and Baez, damaging effects of flooding in this area of Pasadena can be reduced by the open S-tube impeller pumps from Grundfos. The customer was very impressed with this pump performance. Their main concern “[was to move the water as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible and Grundfos does this]”. The city has no complaints and expressed that Grundfos provides excellent wastewater pumps. The city also said that they would be interested in using this pump again in their different wastewater lift stations.