Hammond wants businesses to pre-treat its waste water
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HAMMOND — The city will seek arrangements with some local businesses to pre-treat their waste ater to bring the city’s new $7.5 million sewer treatment system into compliance with its Department of Environmental Quality permit.
The first of such agreements is with a dairy products processing plant owned by Winn-Dixie and expected to be sold in April to Southeast Milk Inc., a Florida-based dairy cooperative.
The city spent $7.5 million constructing a new sewer system that discharges treated waste water into the cypress swamps south of Ponchatoula, a process known as wetlands assimilation. The waste water fertilizes ailing wetlands and improves the growth of cypress trees and other plants to reduce erosion and saltwater intrusion. Similar projects are being considered across the state, in places like St. James Parish and New Orleans.
Since Hammond’s new system went into operation in December 2006, the city has had issues with higher-than-permitted levels of biochemical oxygen demand, or BOD. BOD levels are what these pre-treatment agreements will address, said Mayor Mayson Foster.
BOD is how much oxygen is required to break down organic waste matter in sewage, said state DEQ spokeswoman Jean Kelly.
If the BOD level of treated waste water is too high, it can deplete the oxygen in natural water ways and contribute to fish kills, such as the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, Kelly said.
The wetlands assimilation project was built because the city’s former discharge points, Ponchatoula Creek and Arnold Creek, could not handle any more treated waste water unless the city took steps to refine its treatment process. Building a new treatment system was cheaper than upgrading the city’s existing plants to meet the requirements under the city’s DEQ permit, Foster said.
The BOD issue is considered a kink the city must work out as it adapts to a new sewage-treatment technology considered more friendly to the environment than traditional treatment methods, said Celena Cage, enforcement manager for DEQ’s water section.
DEQ has been working with the city on a long-term solution to the BOD issues rather than charging fines that might affect the city’s ability to fix the problem, Cage said.
At first, the high BOD levels contributed to a foul odor from the city’s new wastewater treatment ponds at CM Fagan Drive, Foster said. The odor issue was addressed last summer, the mayor said.
