Fruitland oversees waste output
Dickinson Frozen Food production surge taxes city treatment plant
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 11:05 AM PST
FRUITLAND — City of Fruitland engineers have been working with Dickinson Frozen Food officials to improve the company’s waste treatment method and minimize problems generated with the current system.
Bob Pharmer, Pharmer Engineering, Boise, said, beginning in January, the company exceeded the allocated amount of suspended solids allowable to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
He said Dickinson pays the city on a tiered rate scale for the number of units of suspended solids the city wastewater treatment plant processes. If the company goes over the allotted amount it pushes it into an upper tier schedule, where it pays additional overage fees in addition to regular treatment fees.
He said recently the amount of solids the city processed has pushed Dickinson into the tier 2, tier 3 range, which will increase Dickinson’s bill significantly.
“We’ve been trying to work with Dickinson Frozen Food to push them to get their treatment system back in shape so it’s back within the limits that we can handle down at the treatment plant,” Pharmer said.
He said when the city receives more than the allocated amount of solids from Dickinson, the city’s wastewater system has to settle more solids in its system and have more solids to dispose of when the lagoons are desludged. It can also cause the city to exceed its discharge limits into the Payette River allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency. So far, however, that has not happened, and the city has maintained its limits.
“So that’s the real critical issue there that we maintain our compliance with the discharge,” Pharmer said, adding the city has so far noted a rise in the wastewater effluent and is monitoring that very carefully.
He said, however, with an increase in temperatures, some of the concern will decrease because warmer temperatures speed up the treatment process.
Also, he said, Dickinson will hopefully get its treatment system in line. He said Dickinson’s current treatment system cannot support the boost in loads from onion production the company has experienced, which have in turn created the larger amount of solids for the city to treat and also contributed to the odor problems the city experienced this summer. Those odor problems generated complaints from residents and an inquiry by the EPA.
Pharmer said Dickinson needs to invest more in upgrading its treatment system in order to reduce the odors and the solid discharge.
“So they need to expand their treatment system, and Dickinson is looking into that right now,” Pharmer said. “And I would say right now, Dickinson has been very cooperative and wants to get things right, and they are moving in the right direction.” He said an expansion at Dickinson Frozen Foods is only a matter of ordering the necessary equipment. Pharmer said Dickinson officials have indicated they will order the equipment in March, which means it would arrive on site and be installed before the hot weather descends in July.
