The Physical Plant Department will be updating the Waste Water Treatment Plant located behind the indoor practice facility.

The current Waste Water Treatment has been in use and working fine for almost 40 years. The system currently experiences an average daily inflow during he school year that ranges from 0.3- 0.5 millions of gallons per day (MGD). However, in recent years the efforts required to keep the equipment in service and replacing parts has increased significantly. The Physical Plant Department has two previous projects to improve the treatment center but neither to the extent of this new project.

Assistant Director Russ Buchholz says the treatment plant is being redesigned to meet the state’s EPA capacity regulations. Buchholz stated that when the amount of people on campus increases rapidly such as on a football game day the ponds couldn’t keep up with capacity. This upgrade will allow the new system to allow a peak flow of 1.25 MGD. This will relieve a lot of the pressure that is currently on the treatment center.

The project is known as “ Project Scope” and hopes to accomplish several goals. The first of these goals is to upgrade to a more modern, efficient and operationally flexible primary treatment aeration system in the west aeration basin. Another goal of Project Scope is to provide a one-way tap onto the City of Oxford sewer system. This will feed the flow into the system during down periods on campus such as semester breaks. The project will also replace electrical equipment in order to make the treatment center more efficient, which will save money.

Associate Utility Engineer Mark Hatfield talked about some of the operational challenges of the current treatment center. He says the flows can peak at times and cause the ponds to overflow or cause the system to overload hydraulically. The other problem is the flow becoming too low at times. The flow can go as low as 0.1 MGD, which is of more concern than the levels being too high.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be almost $1.5 million. Project Scope is expected to be finished by next fall.