Treatment plant receives ecology award

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Birch Bay Water and Sewer District’s wastewater treatment plant has received an outstanding performance award for 2018. Birch Bay is one of four plants in Whatcom County to receive the award this year from the Washington State Department of Ecology.

“I was surprised to see we were only one of four in the county,” operations manager Mike Sowers said. 

During the last 20 years, Birch Bay’s wastewater treatment plant has received an outstanding performance award 16 times.

Winning this award required plant workers to meet permit requirements, run tests and keep good documentation. “It really is a big deal,” Sowers said about the award. “Our process has done well.”

Sowers attributed these achievements to the whole team of operators at the plant. He said in an email that the plant removed almost 94 percent of all solids that came into the plant, removing over 234 tons of solids and pollutants that otherwise would have gone out into Birch Bay and the Strait of Georgia.

Although the Birch Bay plant has older infrastructure, Sowers said the installation of new diffused air piping increased the oxygen transfer rate of the wastewater by 25 percent. Shellfish harvesting opening in Birch Bay back in 2001 was also made possible by the plant’s efforts, he said.

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