Colfax Village Board hires CBS Squared to explore phosphorus options
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — Once again, the Village of Colfax must take action to reduce the amount of phosphorus in the wastewater discharged to the Red Cedar River.
The Colfax Village Board approved at the February 26 meeting hiring CBS Squared for the amount of $3,000 to assess the phosphorus discharge and recommend an option that is acceptable to the state Department of Natural Resources.
The amount of phosphorus the village can discharge to the river in the next five-year permit will be different than the current permit, said Rand Bates, director of public works.
Every five years, Colfax must apply to the DNR for a Wisconsin Elimination System Pollutant Discharge (WPDES) permit.
The current limit is 4 mg/L (milligrams per liter) or 320 pounds of phosphorus per year, Bates said.
The problem, Bates said, was that he was unaware that 4 mg/L of phosphorus in the discharge for the year and 320 pounds of phosphorus are not the same thing.
The DNR would want Colfax to be at 1 mg/L, but it is almost impossible for Colfax to get down that low, Bates said.
Since Colfax cannot meet the DNR’s requirement of 1 mg/L, the DNR wants Colfax to ask for a variance, he said.
In order to ask for a variance, the village must know “all of the numbers” to find out the cost per pound for a reduction in the phosphorus discharge, Bates said.
Bates said that since he does not have experience with determining the cost per pound for eliminating a certain amount of phosphorus discharge, he contacted CBS Squared.
The cost will be $3,000 to figure out which option the village should use, Bates said.
Bates said he had talked with Jon Strand, a senior project manager with CBS Squared, who said he would have to go back over the village’s last several WPDES permits issued by the DNR to see which option would be the best for Colfax.
Carey Davis, village trustee, asked why Colfax cannot meet the 1 mg/L standard set by the DNR.
Colfax could get down to 1 mg/L with a mechanical wastewater treatment plant. Five years ago, a mechanical wastewater treatment plant would have cost $5 million, Bates said.
Pollutant trading
Bates said when he started as the director of public works about 10 years ago, Colfax was doing pollutant trading with a farmer near Cumberland for $15,000 per year.
The farmer was paid by the village of Colfax to not farm so close to the river, he said, adding that the village had no control over whether the farmer actually reduced the amount of run-off from his fields.
Much of the phosphorus in the Red Cedar River comes from run-off from farm fields, Bates said.
Think of it this way — if one factory is polluting and another one is not, then if the factory that is polluting pays the factory that is not polluting, it does not change the amount of pollution, said Gary Stene, village trustee.
The DNR changes what is acceptable to discharge. Two years ago, the limit was 3 mg/L liter, Bates said.
The goal for Colfax was to not discharge more than 320 pounds of phosphorus per year to the Red Cedar River, and Colfax will have to figure out how to get as low as possible, he said.
More chemicals
If the village were to try to get down to 1 mg/L with the current lagoon system, the village would have to add an additional amount of chemicals to the wastewater in the lagoons, Bates said.
Currently, there is a tank for alum at the lagoons, although there is no eyewash station. The hose runs from the tank to the GridBee where it dumps alum, and then the GridBee mixes it into the water, he noted.
Alum — which is the same kind of alum that is used to make pickles crispy — binds to the phosphorus and then sinks to the bottom of the lagoon, which removes the phosphorus from the water being discharged to the river.
Stene said he was serving on the Colfax Village Board in 2002 when the DNR set the limit at 1 mg/L.
Getting down to 1 mg/L would have cost the village taxpayers an additional 25 percent, so Colfax could not get down to 1 mg/L without a financial hardship to the village, he said.
The water coming into the system is over the limit, Stene said.
Years ago, Colfax was discharging 8 to 10 mg/L of phosphorus. The groundwater in this area of the state is naturally high in phosphorus, so water coming out of the tap is already higher than the any of the limits set by the DNR.
CBS Squared will be able to determine which variance would be the best option for Colfax, Bates reiterated.
Why?
Jen Rud, village trustee, asked why phosphorus in the wastewater discharge is a problem.
“Is it harmful?” she asked.
Phosphorus fuels the algae blooms in the lakes, Bates said.
Toxic blue-green algae in Tainter Lake and Lake Menomin is not really algae, but rather, is a cyanobacteria that if ingested can make people and pets sick, can produce rashes on exposed skin, and when the fumes are inhaled, can make breathing more difficult for people already suffering from breathing problems, such as asthma.
The farm field run-off starts up by Rice Lake, Bates said.
The Red Cedar River Watershed covers 1,900 square miles.
Some years ago, at a meeting with the DNR, people living on Tainter Lake were complaining because the outflow pipe from the Colfax wastewater treatment lagoons dumps into the river, and they thought that it was raw, untreated sewage running into the river, Bates said.
Someone from the DNR asked the people in the audience how many of them had pulled up Colfax’s WPDES permit, and none of them had, he said.
There is 5,000 pounds of phosphorus going into the lake from the watershed, and Colfax accounts for 320 pounds out of the 5,000 pounds, Bates said.
The amount of phosphorus Colfax adds to Tainter Lake amounts to 6 percent of the total from the watershed.
“What we put in is minimal. I don’t mind spending the money if it will make a difference, but it does not make a difference,” Stene said.
Research done by SEH (Short Elliott Hendrickson) showed that alum was the best solution for Colfax, and that alum was feasible for Colfax, Bates said.
The alum was a better solution than writing out a check to a farmer by Cumberland for $15,000, he said.
The DNR can control the municipalities for the phosphorus being discharged, but they do not have much control over the farmers, Stene noted.
The wastewater treatment systems for villages, cities and some factories are known as point sources. The DNR can reduce pollution by dealing with one particular point source. Other sources of pollution, such as farm fields, are known as non-point sources and are too numerous to identify a single individual source that would have an impact.
No choice
So in other words, Colfax has no choice but to spend the $3,000 for CBS Squared, Davis said.
The Village of Fairchild also had to make a choice on options recently. The engineers at CBS Squared do this kind of thing everyday, Bates said.
The only problem that could come up is if Colfax spends the $3,000 for CBS Squared to do the work, but then the DNR comes back with another 40 questions, he said.
CBS Squared will be able to collect the numbers and analyze the numbers to know which option for a variance that Colfax should apply for, Bates said.
Bates said he had asked about tracking the phosphorus discharge, and was told that if the discharge was no more than 4 mg/L, there was nothing to worry about. The discharge exceeded 4 mg/L several times, but Bates said he did not worry about it.
Then Bates said he found out that 4 mg/L for discharge for the year was more than the 320 pound limit on phosphorus.
Bates said he began adding alum on September 20 this past season but that he would have to start adding alum earlier than that before the freeze up.
Initially, the SolarBee was used to mix the alum into the lagoon, but the SolarBee only runs during the day when the sun is shining. Then the GridBee was installed because it runs all the time, he said.
The way the alum was set up initially plugged up the pipe twice, and the pipe had to be jetted. A hose is used now to get the alum out to the Grid Bee, where it mixes 24 hours a day, Bates said.
The village spent $10,000 to install electricity at the lagoons so that the GridBee could operate, he noted.
Feasibility
The DNR will want to have a lower limit on phosphorus for Colfax, but it has to be feasible for Colfax to be able to achieve the lower limit, Bates said.
“Does the DNR care about the cost?” Davis asked.
“Yes,” Bates said.
The numbers are needed to be able to figure out the cost per pound for reducing the amount of phosphorus discharge. A limit of 1 mg/L will not be possible, but perhaps the DNR will set the limit at 2 mg/L. The limit will not be 4 mg/L again, and ammonia could be the next issue for Colfax to deal with, he said.
The money for CBS Squared to compile the numbers and make a recommendation will come from the sewer utility fund, said Lynn Niggemann, administrator-clerk-treasurer.
The Colfax Village Board unanimously approved contracting with CBS Squared in an amount not to exceed $3,000 to assess the best options for phosphorus removal from the treated wastewater discharged to the Red Cedar River.
Voting in favor of the motion were Jeff Prince, village president, and village trustees Margaret Burcham, Carey Davis, Anne Jenson, Jen Rud and Gary Stene.
Village trustee Clint Best was absent from the meeting.