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TWSA's wastewater treatment Facility No. 1 was built in 1975 and was originally operated by Jackson County, prior to the establishment of the authority in 1992. Officials with the county and the towns of Sylva, Dillsboro and Webster, facing a 1993 deadline to conform with the Safe Drinking Water Act, came together the form the authority, making its first priority the construction of a new water treatment plant, which was completed in 1996 on the Tuckaseigee River in Cullowhee.
All water and sewer equipment owned by the county and towns was deeded over to TWSA, which is operated by a board appointed by the entities that created it. Two members are appointed by Jackson County commissioners; three are named by Sylva's town board members; and one each comes from Dillsboro and Webster. Western Carolina University, which was involved in the creation of the authority due to its operation of a water treatment facility prior to the authority, also has a seat on the board.
TWSA currently operates three wastewater treatment facilities. In addition to the one on North River Road, treatment facilities are in located in Sylva and Cashiers.
Wastewater generated by WCU, Cullowhee, Sylva (including the hospital) and Webster is treated at the North River Road plant, which is operating at about 900,000 gallons a day, Bryson said. The plant is rated to handle up to 1.5 million gallons daily "under perfect conditions," he said.
The state's Department of Environment and Natural Resources' Division of Water Quality was notified of last week's spill, and officials there are investigating the matter, said Bryson.
"Stan called me after he managed to stop the spill by repairing the pumps," said Kevin Barnett, an environmental specialist with DENR's DWQ. "Because of the dilution rate of that river, I expect the impact to be minimal."
Barnett said he expects no enforcement action to be necessary against TWSA for the spill.
"If there is no impact downstream below the point of dilution, and if they meet all their public notice requirements, generally we do not pursue enforcement," he said.
DENR inspects discharge facilities once a year, though TWSA's No. 1 plant has not yet been inspected this year, Barnett said.
"I've been working with Stan on some technical assistance at the plant," he said. "It will be inspected before July 1."
During his time with DENR, Barnett said he could not remember any significant problems with this treatment plant. He attributed this to Bryson, who has worked at the plant since 1985.
"I believe the operator to be competent and conscientious," Barnett said.
Though TWSA does not require it, a "24-hour attendant could have detected the spill and minimized the impact," Barnett said.
"No spill is little, and I'm not going to sugar-coat this. I could see it in the river," said Bryson, who was required by DWQ to test samples of the river for coliform bacteria at the site of the spill, 100 yards away and 200 yards down stream. Test results were unavailable at presstime. "At 200 yards, the bacteria was higher than it should be, but I could tell it was diluting."
As far as his knows, the spill did not cause a fish kill, Bryson said.
"If anyone knows of any fish killed, I hope they'll let me know," said Bryson.
It's unfortunate, said Bryson, that the community rarely takes notice of the job done by TWSA except when something bad happens.
"We are necessary to the community," he said. "There's no way we could put 900,000 gallons (of wastewater) a day in the ground."
Each time a TWSA sewer customer takes a shower, flushes a toilet or washes the dishes, the resulting wastewater ends up at the treatment facility. From the initial holding tank, the water and its organic waste is "fed" into a tank containing a high concentration of microscopic organisms that devours, or breaks down, the waste and starts the treatment process.
In the next stage of the treatment process, the wastewater is sent to a clarifier, where the waste-containing bacteria settle to the bottom of the tank. Some of these organisms are recycled back into the treatment process, while the remainder is harvested for sludge.
Water from the clarifier is transferred to another basin, where it is chlorinated and disinfected. To remove the chlorine, sulfur dioxide is added. At this stage, the water is considered treated and is added back into the river.
State regulators require an 85 percent reduction in bacteria before sewage is considered treated. According to Bryson, computerized tests run on TWSA's treated wastewater every 20 minutes prove the discharge is often better than that requirement.
The harvested sludge, in the meantime, is mixed with lime, which kills the bacteria, and spread on a slab to dry. The end result is a material suitable for farmers to use on fields, Bryson said. What is not given away to farmers is transported to the Macon County Landfill for disposal.
"I broke the first rule of a wastewater treatment operator," Bryson said of last week's spill. "That is 'If they can see you, hear you or smell you, you haven't done your job.' And I expect more problems of this nature as we try to go by 1999 rules using 1975 equipment."
The state last updated its Safe Drinking Water Act in 1999, but unlike some statutory updates, water and sewer plants are not "grandfathered in" under old rules, said Bryson. Treatment facilities must conform with the current legislation, he said.
In an effort to improve its service to the community, TWSA is considering an expansion of the North River Road treatment facility, Bryson said. His recommendation is to convert the Sylva treatment facility, which treats about 200,000 gallons a day, into a pumping station and add more basins and clarifiers to the No. 1 facility to handle the additional wastewater.
"That way we won't have to upgrade a 40-year-old plant," he said, referring to the Sylva plant. The expansion plan would also allow all sludge production to be done on North River Road without the need to transport, he said.
A decision on the expansion plan could come later this year.
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