Wastewater Treatment Plant
The City of Cle Elum completed the construction
of a new 3.6 million gallon per day Sequential Batch
Reactor (SBR) wastewater treatment plant in the
spring of 2005. This new SBR plant, which is called
the Upper Kittitas County Regional Wastewater
Treatment Facility (WWTF) has replaced the old
lagoon treatment system and it now provides
wastewater treatment for the following entities:
- City of Cle Elum
- Town of South Cle Elum
- City of Roslyn
- City of Ronald (and it’s nearby
unincorporated areas)
- Suncadia Resort
Treatment facilities were designed to handle a
planned 30-year build out with an expected service
population equivalency of 18,956. As of February
2010 the estimated service population is 4,614.
An SBR is a biological wastewater treatment
system in which all the major process steps such as
flow equalization, aeration and clarification; occur
sequentially within the same tank. Wastewater first
enters the treatment facility at the influent pump
station. Here the flow is pumped through a screening
and grit removal system in the first process step
called primary treatment. These filtered solids
materials are collected and hauled to the local
landfill for permitted disposal.
In the secondary treatment process, flow is
directed into one of two SBRs where through a simple
biological treatment process, the wastewater is
naturally broken down even further. The remaining
solids materials, called sludge, is separated and
pumped directly to a double -lined treatment lagoons
for further aeration (for odor control), natural
dewatering and eventual disposal via permitted land
application as fertilizer. The resulting treated
water, called effluent, then flows into an
equalization basin where it receives further
aeration before it is directed through a final
ultra-violet disinfection treatment system. The
clean effluent is metered and discharged directly
into the Yakima River over a constructed rock drop
outfall for even further aeration and treatment.
The WWTF has been operated by Veolia Water North
America (Veolia Water) through a successful
public/private partnership operational contact since
2003. Veolia Water is the leading provider of
comprehensive water and wastewater partnership
services to municipal and industrial customers,
servicing more than 14 million people in
approximately 650 North American communities with
over 30,000 employees. Veolia’s parent company,
Veolia Environment is a global leader in water and
wastewater industry, with operations on every
continent and with over 336,000 employee’s
worldwide. Visit the company's Web sites at
www.veolianorthamerica.com and
www.veoliawaterna.com.
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