CENTREVILLE — As the Centreville wastewater treatment plant works toward upgrades and expansions, options for where the additional treated effluent will go was presented by engineer David Nixson of Whitman, Requardt and Associates to the Centreville Town Council July 18.
The WWTP is expanding from 0.542 million gallons per day up to one million gallons per day and with that, additional treated effluent needs to be disposed of, according to Nixson.
Engineers are looking at expanding the plant’s stream discharge and extending the outfall into the Corsica River proper, he said.
“It’s currently in the Gravel Run adjacent to the treatment plant,” Nixson said.
Officials are working with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science to develop a mixing study and are working with an environmental consultant to gather Corsica River water quality baseline samples to identify the best place for the potential outfall locations and its impact, Nixson said. Data will then be put into an application for a steam discharge permit, he said.
Nixson also noted the final preliminary engineering report for the WWTP upgrades was submitted for Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) review about six weeks ago. It typically takes about 90 days for feedback to be returned, he said.
It is still expected to be sometime before upgrades are underway at the plant and in particular, the outfall and the application for the stream discharge permit are expected to take a few years, according to Nixson.
It was also noted in relation to the WWTP, Centreville Director of Public Works Clifford “Kip” Matthews Jr. presented a notice from the Maryland Department of the Environment following up on violations dating back to 2021 as the WWTP has been referred to the Office of the Attorney General for consent order, he said.
Matthews provided a report that noted instances in which “limitations were not reported,” due to a portion of a renewed permit that the operators missed. he said.
According to Matthews, the operators were supposed to be sampling and testing for BOD Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and total suspended solids and reporting the percent of removal.
There were also instances of phosphorus that had exceeded limits as far as maximum monthly average as well as maximum total, he said.
The phosphorus violations were due to operators changing a chemical used in the treatment plant for the “sequestering of the phosphorus to aid in the removal,” according to Matthews.
“They felt they had a chemical that would work better and it didn’t, and the dosing was off,” he said.
The Centreville WWTP has gone from town staff operation to two different contract operations, previously Maryland Environmental Services and is currently under Susquehanna Environmental, Matthews said.
The phosphorus violations have since been corrected with a different operator and the WWTP does not currently have any ongoing violations, he said.
With 30 days to respond from the initial July 11 letter, Matthews and his staff will be drafting a letter of response required, he said.
The Office of the Attorney General will then determine any fines as well as any potential settlement agreement, Matthews said.
Progress will be presented to the council as it develops, he said.
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