The next meeting of the Western Section of the Professional Wastewater Operators Committee will be held Thursday, July 14, 2016 and will be hosted by the Brevard Wastewater Treatment Plant. This is an open meeting, and membership is not required to attend. Please share the agenda with others who may be interested.

Lunch and Technical Presentation:

Twin Dragons Grand Buffet
1261 Asheville Highway

Brevard, N.C. 28712 

Plant Tour:

Brevard Wastewater Treatment Plant

3226 Wilson Road
Pisgah Forest, N.C. 28768

The City of Brevard Wastewater Treatment Plant is a 2.5 MGD rotating biological contactor (RBC) plant. Constructed in 1986, the plant is located northeast of the city and discharges into the French Broad River.

The plant consists of the following units:
6 stationary screens
2 clarifiers
8 rotating biological contactors RBCs
Sludge holding tank and pump station
Belt filter press

The plant is undergoing major upgrades with a new pretreatment process and significant improvements to the RBC system.
The technical presentation will detail the plant’s challenges to meet permit limits with the addition of wastewater from Oskar Blues Brewery. Starting in December 2012, Oskar Blues began discharging wastewater with high levels of organic material, overwhelming the plant’s ability to process BOD. When originally approved, the brewery’s discharge BOD levels were anticipated to average 1,500 mg/L—the actual values averaged around 5,600 mg/L. In addition to the BOD problem, the plant also faced inconsistent wastewater volume from the brewery and corrosive pH swings with values sometimes dipping below 6 and other times rising above 9. As a result, Brevard WWTP received several citations and fines for violating its discharge permit over an 18 month period. Today, the plant has returned to compliance and is upgrading for the future. ORC Emory Owen and staff will present this story and the lessons learned.

Program Schedule
Lunch: 12:00 p.m.—1:00 p.m.
Technical Session: 1:00 p.m.—2:00 p.m.
Plant Tour: 2:00 p.m.—3:00 p.m.
Two contact hours for wastewater operators will be awarded to those attendees who participate in the Technical Session and the Tour (partial credit cannot be given). Please call Clark Fields at (828) 301-7255 or Robin Deal at (317) 850-6971 with any questions.