Richmond's Award-Winning Water Highlighted During National Drinking Water Week

The City of Richmond Department of Public Utilities (DPU) celebrated National Drinking Water

Week, May 6–12, 2018. “Protect the Source” was the theme for this year’s campaign and provides the opportunity for partners of the American Water Works Association to highlight the vital role water plays in our daily lives and the quality of life we enjoy.

During National Drinking Water Week, representatives from DPU served Richmond’s award-winning water at various water fill stations in the city.

The City of Richmond is one of Virginia’s largest potable water producers, with a Water Plant that has the capacity to treat up to 132 million gallons of water a day from the James River.

The treatment plant and distribution system of water mains, pumping stations and storage facilities provide water to more than 62,000 customers in the city. The facility also provides water to the surrounding area through wholesale contracts with Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover counties and indirectly to Powhatan and Goochland counties. The utility also maintains 1,200 miles of water mains, city fire hydrants for fire protection and 13 pumping stations throughout the city.

A Day with the Strong Waste Program

The treatment of wastewater from restaurants, apartment buildings, commercial businesses, car washes, industrial plants, breweries, hair salons, printers, and similar businesses that have wastewater discharges different from the typical household is a significant expense for DPU, which can recover some of the costs associated with treating wastewater from industrial users through the Strong Waste Surcharge Program. The program measures concentrations of biochemical and oxygen demand, suspended solids, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus in annual random wastewater samples from these types of customers and adds surcharges to their utility bill. The tests involve visiting all those businesses at least once a year and taking samples over a 3-4 day period.

To view a slideshow, click on the first photo.

John Newton, environment tech, is back from collecting the day's first commercial and industrial wastewater samples as part of the Strong Waste Program.

Billing team members Carolyn Cunningham and Flora Edmonds watch Water Quality Technician Katie Dayley test some pretreatment samples.

Senior Chemist Miles Mangrum analyzes wastewater plant and industrial samples.

Senior Chemist Thomas May

Remove the manhole cover.

Pull out the previously placed sampler machine that has been collecting wastewater samples.

Read the calibrations and reset.

Harvest the wastewater samples.

Next we check out some drains behind a grocery store.

This one is separating out the grease.

More grease.

A lot of toilet paper in this one. The hose goes in to collect a sample.

The sampler machine is brought up and emptied.

Thanks for the demonstrations on what you do, Mr. Newton!

Conserve Water

Did you know?

• Approximately 400 billion gallons of water are used in the United States per day

• American residents use about 100 gallons of water per day. At 50 gallons per day, residential Europeans use about half of the water that residential Americans use. And residents of sub-Saharan Africa use only 2-5 gallons per day

• The average faucet flows at a rate of two gallons per minute. You can save up to four gallons of water every morning by turning off the faucet while you brush your teeth

• A running toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water per day

• At one drip per second, a faucet can leak 3,000 gallons per year

• Nearly one-half of the water used by Americans is used for thermoelectric power generation

That’s why we, as residents of Richmond, need to do our part to conserve water and energy.

City Receives Highest Fire Protection Classification

The Insurance Services Office (ISO) reclassified the City of Richmond Department of Fire and Emergency Services as an ISO Class 1, their highest awarded classification in February 2018.

Of the nearly 45,000 Public Fire Protection Districts in the United States, only 270 are ISO Class I and only seven are located in Virginia. This puts Richmond in the top 1 percent for fire protection in the nation.

ISO collects and evaluates information on municipal fire-protection efforts in communities throughout the United States. ISO then assigns a Public Protection Classification from 1 to 10. Class 1 represents superior property fire protection and Class 10 does not meet the minimum requirements of protection.

ISO evaluates a community's fire protection, emergency communications, municipal water supply system, and community risk reduction efforts. The city's fire hydrants are maintained by the Department of Public Utilities.

A community's investment in fire protection is a reliable predictor of future fire losses. Insurance companies use ISO classification information to help establish premiums for fire insurance. Communities with better protection generally are offered lower premiums.

Richmond Gas Works Breaks Record

Kent Foley monitors the demand for natural gas throughout Richmond and Henrico

On Sunday, January 7, 2018, the predicted low temperature was -3 degrees, but in Natural Gas Control Manager Kent Foley’s truck, the temperature gauge was reading -7.

He had two crews on standby that Sunday morning, ready to roll if the natural gas distribution system developed any safety issues. Back in the 1980s, before all the system improvements and replacements were made, if the predicted low for the day was 28 degrees, a crew had to go out at 4 a.m. to manually ensure there would be enough pressure in the valves. If the temperature was 24 degrees, they started at midnight.

Now, without the need for a crew to manually adjust the pressure, the automated system broke a new record, sending out 190,000 decatherms (dth). The previous record was in February 2015 with 183,000 dth.

(A decatherm is a unit of energy used to measure natural gas equal to 1 million BTUs [British Thermal Units]).

Foley, who has been on the job for 32 years, said, “A typical send-out on a cold day would have been 90,000.” If the record low temperature had been reached on a Monday instead of Sunday, the send-out would have been even greater because commercial demand increases on weekdays, and residential users use more natural gas earlier on weekday mornings than they do on weekends.

The increase in natural gas demand in January was a combination of low temperatures and more customers, brought on by DPU’s expansion into developing areas of Henrico County. Westgate is currently the biggest load station. A new station was recently built at Staples Mill and Hungary Road in Glen Allen, connected to the one at Woodman and Hungary roads.

“We’re always trying to get more gas to the West End,” Foley said. As the customer base expands there, and new commercial business is added on the Southside, expect more records to be broken.

City's Wastewater Plant Wins Award

The Wastewater Plant set new records in 2017 for nutrient removal after investing $100 million in plant upgrades, thanks to the hard work of the operations, maintenance and support staff. Total nitrogen released to the James River was reduced by 24,000 pounds over 2016 and phosphorous was reduced by 6,000 pounds.

As a result, the plant received the 2017 NACWA (National Association of Clean Water Agencies Award) for its environmental performance upgrade project.

“I expect the plant to again be the best performing plant on this stretch of the James River,” said Grace LeRose, program manager. “Richmond’s ratepayers are experiencing the benefits of their investment in this infrastructure with a cleaner James River and Chesapeake Bay.”

“We couldn’t have done it without our personnel,” Ed Edmondson, utility operations superintendent, said of the approximately 100 wastewater employees. As for the future, “We’ll focus on biosolids,” he said.

Two important ways citizens and Richmond businesses can help with biosolids management is to not pour grease and oils into drains and to properly dispose of medications, especially antibiotics, through means other than flushing down the drain. Conserving water and repairing leaks are other things citizens can do that will directly benefit their own utility bills.

Wastewater management is a challenging career for young people looking for steady, reliable employment.

“The schedule is tough, the work is tough. You spend a lot of time monitoring, and you always have to be ready to go if something happens. The stress is mental,” said Edmondson. As a result, there’s always vacancies to fill and opportunities for advancement. Successful wastewater personnel need quantitative, logic, reading and comprehension skills for analyzing data and solving problems.

“The pay is good, but there’s that ‘ick’ factor and it is rotating shiftwork,” he said.

Applicants, even those with a high school education, can look forward to a fulfilling career with opportunities to train and learn more about the profession. New hires have two years to earn their certification licenses.

It’s not an all-male profession either. Three women have advanced successfully through the operator ranks including Barbara Jackson, utility operations supervisor at the retention basin, and utility operators Jewel Minor and Vernia Hawthorne.

Supervisors Ed Edmondson (fourth from left) and Clair Watson (eighth from left) celebrate setting new nutrient removal records at the Wastewater Plant with some of the 100 division employees.

  

Time to Rake Again!

With temperatures predicted next week as high as 55 degrees, and rain in the forecast, the snow will be dissolving away and we’ll be looking at our autumn leaves on the ground once again. This is a reminder of the importance of not raking leaves, tree branches and excess trash into the streets where the rain will carry them to the storm drains and create flooding. Take advantage of the warmer (comparatively!) days ahead to bag up those leaves and debris.

Here are some simple steps to keep our storm drains and waterways clean:

• Keep a tight lid on your trash cans and recycling bins, especially during windy days. 
• Pick up trash in your community. 
• Do not rake leaves into the street or create large piles near the curb 
• Limit use of sand and salt on your driveway and walkways. Sweep up residual sand once the snow and ice has melted and before the next rain storm so the sediment doesn’t end up in the stream or storm drains. 
• Pick-up after your dog! Stormwater will pick up the waste and wash it into the storm drain (and nearby streams). Pet waste contains harmful bacteria that impact stream wildlife and water quality.