Finding the right balance
By Jennifer Colton - Argus Observer
Sunday, March 18, 2007 1:07 AM PDT
Weiser - Weiser city staff and engineers from Keller Associates, Boise, toured the Fry Foods processing plant in Weiser Wednesday in an effort to find the best type of wastewater pretreatment facility for the local firm. Because of uneven discharge surges in the plant output, water treatment is necessary before the Fry Foods can increase production or expand.
“They’re pushing right to the limit with their production right now,” Weiser Public Works Director Nate Marvin said Tuesday. “And they’ve got some other contracts they’d like to acquire.”
The problem involves the city’s water source — the Snake River — and the acceptable BOD — biological oxygen demand — discharged from the wastewater plant.
“On our permit to dump into the Snake River, we are limited on how many BODs we can take in,” Marvin said. “We have set a fairly low limit for Fry Foods so we can keep our capacity and still allow the plant a little room to grow.”
Currently, the city has a water testing station set up to monitor the plant outflow.
“Sixty percent of the BOD for the entire community is coming from Fry Foods,” Weiser Wastewater Treatment Plant Supervisor Brad Hansen said during a recent Weiser City Council meeting. “The pretreatment should reduce that about 85 percent.” Funding for the preliminary engineering design for the pretreatment facility will come from an Idaho Gem Communities grant the city received two years ago, Marvin said.
“What the engineers are telling us is they can remove 80 to 85 percent of those BODs before it ever hits the system,” he said. “With the pretreatment, theoretically they should be able to increase (production) three or four times and still be within the threshold we set for them.”
The pretreatment facility will be constructed on an offshoot of Weiser Memorial Park adjacent to the back of the Fry Foods building.
“One of the stipulations for us to get the grant is that it (the pretreatment facility) has to be on city property,” Marvin said. “We’re very fortunate to have this available.”
For now, the city is working with the company on production limits and installing equalization chambers to even the flow into the wastewater plant.
“We have to find a way to keep everything in balance until we can get a pretreatment facility established,” Marvin said. “We’ve been working with Fry Foods for the last couple months. They’ve been very cooperative so far. We’ve got about a six-month period to get this done.”
