City of Howell opts for efficiency at wastewater treatment plant

Howell is the largest city and county seat of Livingston County, Michigan, with a population of about 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 needed to remove phosphorus. The treatment plant is managed by Scott Reece along with four other plant operators. Reece joined the team during the upgrade to help oversee construction, bringing his knowledge of what is needed at a variety of different sized wastewater plants.

“We are rated to treat 2.4 MGD on average with a peak capacity of about 6 MGD, and we have some contingency for a peak flow of about 11 MGD, but this is much more than we have experienced even with a very heavy rain event. The new BNR is a huge improvement for our facility,” Reece said.

With construction of the BNR complete, Reece now oversees the day-to-day operations of the plant and lab, handling everything from maintenance to reporting and, most recently, the implementation of WIMS (Water Information Management Solution), a software program created for wastewater by Aquatic Informatics.

Operators constantly collect data on pH, temperature, ammonia, phosphorus, total suspended solids (TSS) and biological oxygen demand (BOD), which adds up to a lot of numbers. Before using the new software, the team transcribed the data into spreadsheets and then entered it 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 a lot to do than stuck in the office entering data,” Reece said.

For the past 6 months, operators and the lab technician have been entering data directly into digital worksheets in WIMS, which mirror what they used to use in paper format. “Right now, operators are entering data on 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 collect it,” Reece said.

The city also has a small on-site lab that tests for ammonia and phosphorus. Once the results are received, the lab technician enters the data into WIMS, allowing Reece to easily access the data when he needs it.

Dashboards provide an instant visualization of opportunities.

Dashboards are extremely useful for getting a quick overview of how things are doing, especially when they are customizable. Reece said, “When I log in, the KPIs that are important to me appear. The program does the calculations, saving me time and allowing me to instantly know what is happening on the floor when I start my day.”

Alerts are set up to flag anomalies or any type of event that operators want to be notified about. They can be selected to be displayed on the dashboard so that decision makers can easily view the data and make informed decisions.

“Our BNR system is a little bit delicate, and if it gets out of control, I’ll get an alert and if we see phosphorus going up, I can start adding ferric chloride to the system,” Reece said.

Before using the software, Reece would look through paper spreadsheets and see something wasn’t right, so he would handwrite a trend based on the data or create one in Excel. Now, the program has done all the calculations and displays the trend on the dashboard.

“In these types of situations, it definitely saves me a couple of hours. It can take me 30 minutes to an hour just to go through the data, whereas now I see it instantly on my dashboard,” Reece said.

“Anytime I can eliminate the need to sit in front of a screen and input data, I’m happy. I like to get out there and help the guys or at least physically oversee what we’re doing on a day-to-day basis,” Reece said. “The less time I spend in front of the computer, the more time I have to do other things, like focus on quality control and spend more time in the lab.”

On a mission towards paperless reporting

A major time saver that the software provides is when generating reports or control charts. For example, the monthly Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR) that must be submitted to the State of Michigan.

“Sometimes, I had to input more than 30 days’ worth of data to generate a DMR report,” Reece said. “And on top of that, I had to do the calculations required to provide the necessary data. The entire process could consume hours of my day. Now, it takes me about 30 seconds to generate the report.”

Reece is in the process of streamlining other quarterly and annual reporting in WIMS.
Some of the data for reporting is pulled from SCADA and some is entered manually, which can lead to errors. WIMS will flag numbers that do not meet the set parameters, making it easier to identify anomalies for investigation and correction.

The City has been using the system for reporting for the past six months and is now going through the approval stages of the State of Michigan to conduct paperless reporting.
Reece is working with the Michigan State Compliance Coordinator on an assurance plan to demonstrate 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 the data for a particular day, from any point in time. Reece will have to gather all the documents to support the report and prove that the numbers are not falsified.

Having all supporting data in a central digital program will allow these audits to be just a few clicks away and possibly performed online.

“We are always looking for ways to be more efficient, and while the goal here is to be able to submit DMRs directly from WIMS, we can also streamline the audit process, which is helpful for both us and the state,” Reece said.

Add more capabilities in the future

“We’re recording a lot of telemetry data with sensors that includes everything related to flow, pumps, valves, etc., and then if you multiply that by the number of lift stations, you get a mountain of paper,” Reece said. “That’s why we want to add Rio – having all that information in digital format will be great.”

Rio is the mobile version of WIMS that helps operators collect and organize data to gain useful insights in the field. It can pull data from instruments and allow crews to capture data on-site with a connected mobile device. “We’re going to put a tablet in the hands of every operator on each side of the city, so they can complete their work on-site, and I don’t need to go around in a truck to see what’s going on, it will automatically feed into WIMS,” Reece said.

Sometimes samples need to be sent to a larger lab for testing, such as mercury and PFAS testing. These results are sent to the city on paper and then manually entered into a report. The city hopes to connect the lab to WIMS and eliminate another manual, paper-based entry process.

“We know there is a lot more we can do with the program. For example, we can connect our Hach DR3900, which can perform the phosphorus testing and put the results directly into WIMS. All the little time savings add up, I just need the time to implement them,” Reece said.

Scott Reece is a hard-working man passionate about improving the efficiency of the City of Howell’s wastewater treatment plant and sharing his experiences with his peers through his blog, Grit Channel (www.thegritchannel.com).

“Utility budgets are tight, and if we buy something that doesn’t suit us, it better work – every dollar counts. WIMS is already making a huge difference to the way we do things, and we still have a lot more functionality to unlock,” Reece concluded.