By Sarah Welsh
SUN Assistant News Editor
On six occasions during December, Española’s new $14 million wastewater plant discharged sewage-tainted water into the Rio Grande, in violation of its environmental permit.
On at least one of those occasions, the count for fecal coliform bacteria was 350 times the permitted limit.
“Yes, it went into the river,” Plant Chief Laboratory Analyst Barton Thom said.
The city is allowed 400 colonies of bacteria per 100 milliliters, and at one point the sewer plant was discharging 140,000 colonies, according to city documents. By comparison, raw sewage contains approximately 2 million colonies of bacteria per 100 milliliters.
Thom said the problem is the plant’s ultraviolet (UV) disinfection system, which blasts bacteria with UV light and destroys its ability to reproduce.
“We are constantly replacing parts to try to optimize the performance,” Thom said. “We’ve been having some problems with some light bulbs burning out.”
Thom said the plant just received a shipment of chlorine tablets so operators can manually disinfect the system in the meantime.
This is the latest headache in a long history of sewage-treatment problems for the city. The current plant cost the city roughly $14.3 million and went online one year ago. It was built in response to federal ammonia discharge standards put into effect by Santa Clara Pueblo in the late 1990s.
Testing reports show that the new plant is well below the permitted limit for ammonia. Santa Clara environmental officials could not be reached for comment.
Because the plant sits on Pueblo land, environmental enforcement is in the hands of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Agency Spokesman David Bary said the recent permit violation is under review by staff at the Region 6 office in Dallas.
“I can’t say with any specificity if there will be a formal enforcement action in the form of an administrative order — there may be,” Bary said. “There’s been no decision made yet, and the enforcement staff will review and make their recommendation to management.”
While Española’s plant was in violation of ammonia standards, it racked up over $150,000 in federal fines. The Agency suspended those fines since the city was working to build a new plant.
An online Agency guide to stream monitoring says that fecal coliforms are generally not harmful, but they come from sewage, which can contain more dangerous contaminants.
“They indicate the possible presence of pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria, viruses, and protozoans that also live in human and animal digestive systems,” the Agency guide states. “Therefore, their presence in streams suggests that pathogenic microorganisms might also be present and that swimming and eating shellfish might be a health risk.”
District 3 City Councilor Chayo Garcia said she’s upset, particularly because she didn’t learn of the plant’s problems until the issue was raised at a Council meeting in January.
“What can you say?,” Garcia said. “You can get mad and hold your breath and tell ’em to fix it. They keep it secret, or keep it to themselves. You don’t know.”
What Can Be Done?
It’s unclear what can be done to fix the plant’s current problem.
The supposedly faulty UV disinfection system was manufactured and installed by Aquionics, a Kentucky-based firm. Aquionics President Bill Decker said there were issues early on with the UV lamps, but those have been fixed and Aquionics conducted additional trainings for the plant’s operators.
The company’s service engineers came to Española last week to inspect the system and found nothing wrong with their equipment, Decker said.
“What we can safely say is our UV equipment is working,” Decker said.
Thom and Decker both said they are working together to get the system operating properly.
Thom said he believes the equipment is still under warranty. Decker said he didn’t know the exact terms of Española’s warranty, but a typical warranty lasts 12 months from the start-up date.
The sewer plant’s problems became a political football late last month when District 4 City Councilor Alice Lucero blamed its malfunction on longtime city engineering firm Molzen-Corbin, who designed both the old and new plants. Lucero was opposing a motion to hire Molzen-Corbin for a series of water projects, and pointed to the sewer plant’s December violations as an example of poor design. Molzen-Corbin Chief Executive Officer Adelmo Archuleta said his company didn’t manufacture or supply the UV equipment, and his employees have been working extra hours without pay to try to rectify the situation.
“The design of that is right on — the equipment is sized properly, everything is okay with that,” Archuleta said. “The problem is, we got a lemon.”