CWEA Wastewater Professional :: April 2014 March 2014 Volume 2 | Page 25

Feature Article | Solving the challenge of non-dispersible wipes

• In the City of Santa Ana a pump station with drysidered by some wastewater professionals to be the
prime pumps was clogging frequently with wipes.
current benchmark for dispersibility. It is the opinion
The working conditions were cramped and dangerof these professionals that based on their testing that
ous for repair crews. The problem was cleared up by
if all wipes, including baby wipes, were made of this
installation of a dual shafted sewage grinder.
substrate the problem with pump clogging would be
• Central Contra Costa Sanitary District and
greatly reduced or eliminated. And in a look to the
engineer Justin Waples, PE, came up with an affuture, Kimberly Clark has developed a substrate that
fordable way to notify property owners about the
will hit the market-place in 2014 that breaks apart
consequences of nondispersibles in areas where
quicker and with less force than their 2013 product.
sewer blockages occur. Justin records the location
• We’ve done our homework – several research
of the blockage and using GIS, he traces the sewprojects looked closely at the debris inside pump
ershed upstream. The GIS then generates a mailing
stations and determined around 40% are wipes (frelist of all customers in the area and they receive a
quently baby wipes). In one study, researchers found
postcard with information about nondispersibles and
40% of the debris was actually brown and white
the problems they cause – including the possibility
paper towels from public restrooms.
of plumbing problems on the owner’s property. The
• The Southern California Association of POTWs
mailings have proven effective in preventing reoccur(SCAP) offers a pump clog form so agencies can
ring problems.
record data about each pump ragging incident and
• Orange County consulting
determine which materials are
engineer Tricia Butler, PE, of RMC
causing the problem. The form
Water & Environment came up
is available on www.scap1.org
with a simple, no cost idea when
– search for Non-dispersibles
designing new pump stations for
Report.
her clients – leave room in front
• CWEA and several other
of the pump for an in-line sewer
wastewater associations wrote
grinder, but don’t instal