March has been wild as far as the weather is concerned. Colonial Beach’s wastewater treatment plant has had it particularly rough as a result, but it looks like things are on the mend.

As usual, John Simmons of Inboden Environmental Services provided a full report at the Colonial Beach Town Council meeting. Simmons went into detail about the challenges that Inboden faced at the wastewater plant.

“At the beginning of the month, we were dealing with real frigid cold weather that inhibits nitrification and ammonia removal,” Simmons explained. “When the elevated flows came in, we had to turn off our air blowers and mixers to be able to retain solids so that we didn’t send them into the river.”

Inboden was able to keep the solids within the plant, but this also meant that ammonia levels were above the standard set by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), requiring a letter of explanation. Simmons cited the frigid temperatures and the resulting equipment failures as the primary cause of trouble. Fortunately, spare parts were on hand, and according to Simmons, Colonial Beach Public Works did a lot of heavy lifting to keep the plant functional, including replacing a gearbox.

With warmer weather returning, nitrification could kick into high gear again, allowing things to stabilize.

“Obviously, DEQ wants us to get things functioning as quickly as possible,” continued Simmons. “One of their biggest concerns was whether we had fixed the equipment that failed. They expect treatment issues when it’s cold, and they know how nitrification works. They just want to make sure that we’re following our schedule of compliance for the consent order and that we did get that failed equipment back online. So it’s fair to say that they’re pleased with what we were able to accomplish.”

Inflow and infiltration have been major concerns as well, especially after months of frigid weather and cold snaps. According to Simmons, a number of failures in the collection system had been identified, and at least one contractor was preparing to conduct a repair on Sixth Street that would replace about 800 feet of the main line. Simmons noted that Inboden and Public Works were doing their level best to identify spots for the Town’s maintenance department to repair.

“We’re just working through it a little bit at a time, but we can already see in the flow charts that we’re making a difference. The inflow and infiltration are reducing, but we still have a ways to go.”