Howell is the largest city and county seat of Livingston County, Michigan with a population of around 10,000. The City has a Class B wastewater treatment plant that treats about 2 MGD and has recently added a biological nutrient removal (BNR) system that dramatically reduces the amount of ferric chloride and other chemicals need to remove phosphorus. The treatment plant is managed by Scott Reece with four other plant operators. Reece joined the team during the upgrade to help oversee the construction, bringing his knowledge of what in a variety of different sized wastewater plants.
“We're rated to treat 2.4 MGD on average with a peak capacity of about 6 MGD, and we have some contingency for a maximum peak flow of around 11 MGD, but this is far in excess of what we have ever experienced even with a very heavy rain event. The new BNR is a great upgrade to our facility,” said Reece.
With the BNR construction completed, Reece now oversees daily operations of the plant and lab, handling everything from maintenance to reporting, and recently an implementation of WIMS (Water Information Management Solution) a software program built for wastewater by Aquatic Informatics.
Operators are constantly gathering data on pH, temperature, ammonia, phosphorous, total suspended solids (TSS), and biological oxygen demand (BOD) which amounts to a lot of numbers. Prior to using the new software, the team was transcribing data onto bench sheets and then later inputting the data into excel. “The work was tedious, and it was easy to get behind because we all prefer to be out in the field where there is lots to do, than stuck in the office entering data,” said Reece.
For the last 6 months, the operators and lab technician have been entering data directly into digital bench sheets in WIMS, that mirror what they were used to using in paper form. “Right now, operators are entering data into the desktop, but our plan is to go mobile with Rio and use a tablet, or laptop, so we have more freedom to collect data wherever we are collecting it,” said Reece.
The City also has small laboratory on site that tests for ammonia and phosphorous. Once the results are in, the lab technician enters the data into WIMS, allowing Reece to easily access the data when he needs it.
Dashboards provide an instant visual on opps
Dashboards are extremely helpful in getting a quick snaphot of where things are at, especially when they are customizable. Reece said, “When I log in, the KPI’s that are important to me pop right up. The program does the calculations which saves me time and enables me to instantly know what is going on in the plant when I start my day.”
Alerts are set to flag anomalies, or any type of event that operators wants to be notified about. These can be selected to display on the dashboard so decision-makers can easily view the data and make informed decisions.
“Our BNR system is a bit finicky, and if it gets out of whack, I’ll get an alert and if we see phosphorous going up I can start to add ferric chloride to the system,” said Reece.
Prior to the software, Reece would review the paper bench sheets, and see that something is amiss and either handwrite a trend, based on the data or do it in excel. Now the program has done all the calculations and shows the trend in the dashboard.
“In this kind of a situation it definitely saves me a couple hours. It can take 30 minutes to an hour just going through data, whereas now I see it instantly on my dashboard,” said Reece.
“Anytime I can eliminate sitting in front of a screen and entering data, I'm happy. I like to go out and help the guys or at least physically oversee what we're doing on the day to day,” said Reece. “The less time I spend at the computer means I have more time to do other things like focus on quality control and spend more time in the lab.”
On a mission to paperless reporting
A big time savings that the software brings is when it comes to generating reports or control charts. For example, the monthly Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR) that needs to be filed with the State of Michigan.
“Sometimes I would have 30 plus days of data that needed to be entered in order to generate a DMR report,” said Reece. “And on top of that I would have to do the necessary calculations to provide the data needed. The whole process could consume hours of my day. Now it’s about 30 seconds or so for me to generate the report.”
Reece is in the process of streamlining other quarterly and annual reporting into WIMS.
Some of the data for reports is pulled from SCADA, and some is entered manually, which can give rise to mistakes. WIMS will flag numbers that are out of set parameters making it easier to identify anomalies to investigate and correct.
The City has been using the system for reporting for the last six months and is now going through the stages of approval from the state of Michigan to go paperless with reporting.
Reece is working with the compliance coordinator from the state of Michigan on an assurance plan to show proof that the new system can provide an audit trail and do what is required.
Periodically, compliance auditors will come to the plant, and ask to see all data on a particular day, going back to any point in time. Reece will have to pull all the paperwork to back up the report to show proof that the numbers are not misrepresented.
Having all the support data in one central digital program will enable these audits to be a few clicks away and possibly done online.
“We are always looking for ways to be more efficient, and while the goal here is to be able to send DMR’s directly from WIMS, we can also streamline the audit process which is helpful for both us and the State,” said Reece.
Adding more capabilities in the future
“We're recording a large amount of telemetric data with sensors including everything to do with flow, pumps, valves etc., and then if you multiply that by the number of lift stations, it amounts to stacks of paper,” said Reece. “This is why we want to add Rio—having all that information in a digital format will be great.”
Rio is the mobile form of WIMS that helps operators collect and organize data into actionable insights in the field. It can pull data from instruments and allow personnel to capture data on-site with a connected mobile device. “We're going to put a tablet in the hands of each operator on each side of the city, so they can complete their work on site, and I don’t need to roll a truck to see what’s going on, it will automatically go into WIMS,” said Reece.
Occasionally samples are required to be sent to a bigger lab for testing like testing for mercury and PFAS. These results are sent to the city by paper, and then manually entered into a report. The City hopes to connect the lab to WIMS and eliminate another paper and manual entry process.
“There is a lot more that we know we can do with the program, for instance, we can connect our Hach DR3900 that can run the phosphorous testing and put the results directly into WIMS. All the little time savers add up, I just need the time to implement them,” said Reece.
Scott Reece is hard-working and passionate about improving the efficiencies at the City of Howell’s wastewater treatment plant, and sharing his experiences with his peers through his blog the Grit Channel (www.thegritchannel.com).
“Utility budgets are tight, and if we buy something we are stuck with, it better work—every dollar counts. WIMS is already making a big difference in the way we do things, and we still have a lot more functionality to unlock.” concluded Reece.
