South Beloit moves toward plant loan.
SOUTH BELOIT — The South Beloit City Council took a preliminary step in applying for an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Water Pollution Control Loan to assist in financing a new wastewater treatment plant.
City Attorney Roxanne Sosnowski told council members at their meeting Monday the city engineering firm, Fehr Graham, now will prepare a loan application to be submitted to the program.
Once terms of a loan have been finalized, the agreement will come back to the city council for review and final approval.
No amount or terms for repayment have been presented yet, said council member Linda Chambers.
The city is planning to construct a new wastewater treatment plant with an estimated cost of $27.8 million.
City officials have talked about a new sewer plant for at least eight years as previous and current city council members have argued the current facility is outdated and not effective to handle future needs of the citys population or business community.
The sewer plant was built in 1955 with expansions in 1968, 1977 and 1986.
He said the sewer plant is handling about 3.5 million gallons a day currently when it was taking in about 2 million gallons a day at this time last year.
Reininger said the groundwater leaking into the sanitary sewer system is most likely not coming from the areas that recently were repaired, but there may be new leaks.

Sewer plant project: Costly, but useful.
The project includes upgrading the village area’s District I sewage treatment plant on South Street, and also closing the District II plant that serves the area around the intersection of Route 7 and 35, then piping that sewage to the South Street plant for treatment.
The last time the town’s District I sewer plant was renovated, more than 20 years ago, the cost was about $13 million — and the new renovation is expected to cost more.
The project will have several aspects: To upgrade treatment capability at the District I sewer plant, serving the village and town center, to meet higher state environmental standards for the treatment of both nitrogen and phosphorous; To close the District II sewer plant, near the intersection of Routes 7 and 35, and pipe the effluent currently handled by there to the upgraded District I plant off South Street for treatment; To modernize treatment facilities that are old, and have been relentlessly used.
“Those drive the technology that you use, the treatment process that you use to achieve those limits, and those treatment technologies become more complex — and they’re also not what we have in place right now, so we have to get them in place so we can meet our permit limits.” Getting older Sewer plants are supposed to be upgraded every 20 years, and it’s been 24 or 25 years for District I; but the town has been working with the DEEP.
“Instrumentation,” added Siebert.
“Not beyond what we currently have, for in-town, and Route 7,” Marconi added.
Efficiency was also part of the decision to close the District II plant at 7 and 35, and pump that waste down Route 35 to the center of town for treatment at South Street.
“Long-term cost benefits,” said Marconi.
Another is that sewer system benefits the entire town by allowing there to be a more densely developed area, with commercial and multifamily buildings that create a town center — and pay a lot of taxes.

New treatment plant to provide clean drinking water to conflict-affected Iraqis south of Mosul.
ERBIL, Iraq, 27 April 2017 – A new water treatment plant on the banks of the Tigris River will provide clean drinking water for more than 50,000 Iraqis at the Qayyarah Airstrip Emergency Site, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) said on Thursday.
The plant, currently under construction, is supported by UNICEF and EU humanitarian aid and will provide both emergency and long-term solutions for the current water crisis stemming from military operations in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which has so far resulted in the displacement of more than a half million people.
‘The majority of water treatment plants along the Tigris have been destroyed in fighting over the last several years, leaving vulnerable populations with only access to raw, untreated river water,’ said Thomas Wilson, Coordinator for DRC’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme.
‘We decided to build a new treatment plant to provide clean drinking water to the camp and host community as a way of providing an immediate and longer-term solution.’ Located some three kilometers east of the Airstrip, the treatment facility – a compact design of traditional plants – can provide up to 200 cubic metres of water (200,000 litres) per hour for camp residents, greatly increasing both the quantity and quality of drinking water.
DRC has worked with authorities and engineers from the local water directorate to design and build the treatment plant as both a response to the current humanitarian emergency and a longer-term, durable solution for water provision in the area.
After the construction of a connecting pipeline to the Airstrip, the treatment plant will more than triple the current provision of clean drinking water to residents.
‘With the arrival of summer, water consumption across Iraq will spike and we are now in a better position to provide enough water per person in the Airstrip,’ Wilson added.
‘This will help mitigate the outbreak of diseases like cholera, which is endemic across the country.’

ALL Shanghai wastewater treatment plants are on a deadline to be upgraded.
Their improvement program to raise treatment standards for urban wastewater starts in September.
They are required to meet a top-level national emission standard after the city government was criticized for postponing upgrading from 2016 to 2020.
Separately, Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau’s law enforcement team would be enlarged to ensure stricter enforcement against polluting enterprises and regulation violators, the bureau’s chief Zhang Quan said yesterday.
In the report, the inspection team pointed out problems in Shanghai’s efforts of building a better ecological environment, including the local government’s “leniency” toward environmental management.
“But for those handling 2 million tons, it’s difficult.” Zhang said all of the city’s 53 wastewater treatment plants would start upgrading their facilities in September to meet the national Level 1-A emission standard.
Zhang said some renovations could be completed within this year, with the rest expected to do so by next year.
The inspection team’s report said Shanghai’s water environment management was inadequate — and 88 out of the 259 surface water sections under the city’s monitoring program failed to meet the Grade V national standard.
Zhang said that with regard to water pollution, the polluting sources often involved illegal discharge from poultry farms, farmlands, as well as waste from residents in illegal constructions along rivers.
“Sludge problems are the next to be resolved after water pollution.” The inspection team’s report also said Shanghai water authority showed too much leniency to industrial polluters.

Fee hike: Parents form human chain.
Haryana Mukesh Tandon Panipat, April 10 Enraged over the hike in fees and annual funds by private schools, parents of students formed a human chain here today.
They gathered under the banner of the Panipat Parents Association at a local market to oppose the private schools’ move.
The parents protested against the fee hike, annual charges, development charges, smart classroom charges and other funds by private schools.
The protesting parents formed a human chain for more than an hour.
Rakesh Chugh, vice-president of the PPA, said all schools were under the state education policy and norms and they were bound to obey norms of the Education Department.
Rohan Goyal, secretary of the PPA, urged parents not to hand over vehicles to teenagers because it was dangerous for children as well as other commuters.
Private schools oppose order to install sewage treatment plants Faridabad: The state Pollution Control Board has directed private schools to install sewage treatment plants (STP) on their premises to prevent water wastage.
No school in the district has such a facility at present, it is revealed.
While the demand of STP in educational institutions was not a new norm under the Pollution Control Act, no school in the city had established one, they claimed.

Thamesville’s wastewater will be sent to Ridgetown’s treatment plant.
When it comes to addressing aging water pollution control plants, it’s a lot cheaper to connect to an existing facility than build a new one.
The Chatham-Kent Public Utilities Commission voted to approve a nearly $4.2-million tender to build the infrastructure to pump Thamesville’s wastewater to the Ridgetown wastewater treatment plant.
Clarke Construction of Ltd. of Blenheim was the successful bidder for the project that will be funded from the PUC’s sanitary sewer collection lifecycle budget.
A report detailed how the existing water pollution control plant in Thamesville, constructed in 1980, is currently in poor condition and requires significant upgrades to address the extensive deterioration.
PUC general manager Tim Sunderland said piping the wastewater from Thamesville to Ridgetown’s treatment plant is much cheaper than building a new plant.
Noting there are 10 water treatment and wastewater treatment plants in the PUC system, he said, “any time we can reduce the infrastructure and pump it to a facility that’s got capacity, I think that’s the way to go.” Sunderland said for several years, water has been pumped from Wheatley’s water treatment plant to serve the community of Tilbury, which enabled the two systems to be consolidated.
The Thamesville project includes building a new pumping station at the existing water pollution control plant site, an inline grinder at the Sherman Street pumping station and 15 kilometres of forcemain between Thamesville and Ridgetown.
Sunderland said the project is ready to have shovels put in the ground, noting it just needs final approval from Ministry of Environment and Climate Control.
According to the report at Monday’s PUC meeting, the project is slated to be finished by the end of September.

Parched for clean water, industrialised Gujarat can show India the way out of pollution mess.
In late February, the country’s supreme court mandated that all polluting industries must ensure that waste water discharges meet quality standards by installing effective primary effluent treatment facilities by March 31, 2017.
River and lake pollution is a major problem across much of India, and regulatory inertia toward industrial waste water has exacerbated the situation.
The Gujarat Pollution Control Board forced non-compliant industrial units to implement a time-bound action plan, including a series of strategies to mitigate water and air pollution within the industrial clusters.
Following recommendations made by the Gujarat government’s water resource department in 2015, the state’s five-year industrial policy has now introduced various financial incentives to help facilities improve waste water quality and curb usage.
According to the agency’s 2014-15 annual report, industrial use of pollution-abatement technologies and upgrades in common effluent treatment plants have mitigated chemical oxygen demand and ammoniac nitrogen in water sources, both measures of industrial pollution.
And neither state nor national environmental controls have improved the quality of water in Gujarat’s rivers, lakes, creeks and coastal areas outside the specified industrial clusters.
Today, access to reliably clean water is still an ongoing challenge for Gujarat.
And given the many new Gujarat government incentives aimed at improving industrial environmental governance, the investment required to upgrade environmental protections no longer looks quite so unprofitable.
Such innovation is not only now financially feasible, it could also help industries to insulate themselves against future water scarcity in the state.

Despite Efforts, Clean Water Is Scarce In India’s Industrial Gujarat State.
In late February, the country’s Supreme Court mandated that all polluting industries must ensure that waste water discharges meet quality standards by installing effective primary effluent treatment facilities by March 31 2017.
River and lake pollution is a major problem across much of India, and regulatory inertia toward industrial waste water has exacerbated the situation.
In Gujarat, even regions with otherwise plentiful surface water sources are affected as creeks and rivers turn into black cesspools thanks to increasing municipal waste and insufficient sewage treatment plants.
The Gujarat Pollution Control Board forced non-compliant industrial units to implement a time-bound action plan, including a series of strategies to mitigate water and air pollution within the industrial clusters.
These steps are beginning to show some results.
According to the agency’s 2014-15 annual report, industrial use of pollution-abatement technologies and upgrades in common effluent treatment plants have mitigated chemical oxygen demand and ammoniac nitrogen in water sources, both measures of industrial pollution.
And neither state nor national environmental controls have improved the quality of water in Gujarat’s rivers, lakes, creeks and coastal areas outside the specified industrial clusters.
And given the many new Gujarat government incentives aimed at improving industrial environmental governance, the investment required to upgrade environmental protections no longer looks quite so unprofitable.
Such innovation is not only now financially feasible, it could also help industries to insulate themselves against future water scarcity in the state.

Products & Services: Wastewater Treatment.
Sludge gun Markland’s handheld sludge gun is a blanket level detector that measures solid-liquid interface levels in wastewater treatment clarifiers, tanks and lagoons.
It helps users to eliminate unnecessary pumping/dredging, to monitor sludge bed depth for regulatory compliance and prevention of carryover, and to create valuable level profiles.
The Sludge Gun® uses high-intensity infrared light to locate both sludge blanket and overlying cloudy layer.
Markland Wastewater testing The QuenchGone21 Wastewater test kit (QG21W) from LuminUltra provides the ability to measure the active biomass population (AVSS), stress levels (BSI), and suspended solids activity (ABR).
By isolating the living population and eliminating all interferences, the operator can maximize efficiency and stability in any treatment process to prevent upsets, manage toxicity, streamline operations, and save money.
This test kit uses two parallel analyses on each sample to determine the health and activity of the active biomass population in a wastewater sample.
LuminUltra Degasification technology SEPAREL hollow fiber membrane modules remove dissolved gases, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, in water to prevent the formation of rust and bacteria in water treatment systems.
SEPAREL modules can be installed in series within the same water treatment system to ensure sufficient degasification and achieve the desired ppb (parts-per-billion) level for various water treatment applications.
DIC Corporation Membrane bioreactor The TITAN MBR QUBE™ from Smith & Loveless is a complete, factory-built, packaged wastewater treatment system featuring a compact design for simple shipping and mobility.

Lough Melvin: Foam prompts water quality fear on Lough Melvin.
Northern Ireland Water has said there is “no evidence to suggest” that the foam has been caused by pollution from the Garrison waste water treatment works but Leitrim Councillor Justin Warnock has called for questions to be asked of water officials in Fermanagh.
He stated: “On behalf of Lough Melvin anglers and residents of Askill and Bundoran who source their drinking water from this lake [I ask that we write to] Fermanagh County Council and question what is being discharged into this lake from its sewage/waste water treatment plant at Garrison which causes a very visible foam like slick which can extend from Garrison to Kinlough peir and entombs invertebrates as it travels.” Speaking to The Impartial Reporter this week, he said: “Up until 15 years ago, the water quality in Lough Melvin was second to none but more people are using chemicals in toilets, showers etc.
“The lough has salmon, char as well as gillaroo, ferox and sonaghan strains of trout.
“A recent EPA report showed increased levels of phosphorous in the lough which could be as a result of agriculture, although there’s no intensive farming in the area; forestry; or pollution/sewage.
“The big question is: ‘What’s happening at Garrison?’” Fermanagh and Omagh District Council said it has not received a letter from Leitrim County Council on the issue.
A spokesman added: “Water pollution matters are dealt with by DAERA via NI Environment Agency Staff.” A NI Water spokeswoman told The Impartial Reporter: “NI Water can confirm that Garrison Wastewater Treatment Works has been visited and subsequently reviewed again this afternoon via the telemetry monitoring system.
“There is therefore no evidence to suggest the foaming was caused by the Works.” A Garrison Lough Melvin Angler’s Association (GLMAA) spokesman said the club is monitoring the situation.
“We are aware of the recent issues raised in a radio interview on Ocean FM with Councillor Warnock,” he stated, adding: “issues around water quality in Lough Melvin are of paramount importance and is a major area of concern for GLMAA.
“Suggestions are that the cause of the issue originates at the water treatment plant in Garrison.