Work continues on Waynesboro's water treatment plant

September 10, 2013|By JENNIFER FITCH | waynesboro@herald-mail.com

WAYNESBORO, Pa. — Contractors continue to work on upgrading Waynesboro’s wastewater treatment plant as they eye a spring 2014 completion for the $10.2 million project.

The wastewater treatment plant was built in the 1930s and last upgraded in the 1980s, according to Jon Fleagle, chairman of the Waynesboro Borough Authority.

The Waynesboro Borough Council received an update on the project Tuesday evening from Fleagle and Leiter Pryor, the borough’s director of utilities.

The borough’s 5,500 sewer customers had rate increases each year since 2010 to fund the project.

The plant is being adapted to change the way nitrogen and phosphorus are removed from wastewater. Those upgrades are designed to be in line with new Chesapeake Bay nutrient reduction requirements.

The plant is now processing wastewater in a way that meets the new requirements, Fleagle said.

“Basically, we’re running the plant now on manual mode because we are having some trouble with automation for nutrient removal,” he said, adding that those issues are being addressed.

A second phase of the project will rehabilitate existing facilities, including the digester that stores wastewater. Fleagle said the digester work will probably be done in the spring so that its stored waste can be emptied and applied to farm fields.

Four contractors are working on the plant, with Kinsley Construction of York, Pa., acting as the general contractor, Pryor said.

Similar plant upgrade projects are in various stages in Franklin County, Pa., because of the Chesapeake Bay nutrient reduction program.

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