Small community wastewater treatment program start-up assistance and management evaluation

Document
Description
In 2006, the Minnesota State Legislature established a Small Community Wastewater Treatment Grant and Loan Program (Program)(Minn. Stat. ยง 446A.075), funded through Clean Water Legacy, to help small communities and local units of government address failing and non-compliant sewage treatment systems. Following start-up of the Program, it was observed that some small communities struggled to keep their new systems operating and maintained as intended. This Start-Up Assistance and Management Evaluation Report (Report) is designed as a Program enhancement to revisit new systems, after one year of operation, to provide small community infrastructure start-up assistance where necessary, and confirm that Clean Water Legacy (CWL) funded wastewater improvement projects are meeting local and/or state permit requirements and are being operated and maintained as designed and approved. If site visits reveal problems with the new wastewater systems, communication is directed to the System Owner with recommendations on how to resolve them. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) will make the results of this small community start-up assistance evaluation available to interested parties including other state agencies and other local permitting authorities. In 2014, five systems were included in this Report with recommendations to follow up on them the following year (2015). The 2015 Report included one new system as well as follow up from the five reviewed in 2014. This Report includes follow up information on small communities previously reviewed as well as one new system and one corrective action system. All of these systems are permitted/regulated by local units of government because design flows are less than the minimum set for state permitting authority (See LSTS Design Guidance for permit authority determination: http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/view-document.html? id=5179). It was recommended that all of the facilities included in the 2016 Report receive a follow up phone call and others a site visit. While some systems were being managed well, deficiencies were noted in others. Some of these deficiencies were serious including long term overloading of the system and bypassing.
Date Issued
2016
Number of Pages
8
Decade
Rights Holder
Minnesota Water Research Digital Library
Rights Management
Public Domain