Moccasin Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant Disinfection
The Moccasin Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant is the regional wastewater treatment facility for the City of Chattanooga, much of Hamilton County, Tennessee, and parts of northern Georgia. Chattanooga had growing safety concerns using chlorine gas in the treatment plant’s disinfection system and sought to find long-term alternative solutions for disinfecting the wastewater using liquid sodium hypochlorite.
The Challenge
In 2009, Chattanooga experienced an accidental release of chlorine during a routine operation at the treatment plant. While the plant’s safeguards operated as designed and prevented a potentially harmful event, it increased the City’s desire to stop the use of chlorine gas as a disinfectant, leading them to seek out long-term alternative solutions.
The Solution
Barge Design Solutions provided preliminary design, surveying, detailed final design, preparation of construction documents, bidding phase services, construction phase services, resident project representation, permitting assistance, and startup assistance.
The team worked with Chattanooga and contractor to update the system with variable hose pumps, backup pumps, storage tanks for future expansion, and a covered storage facility. Monitoring and control was provided to adjust the sodium hypochlorite levels as needed at the plant. During construction, Barge Design Solutions worked with the contractor and plant staff to focus construction efforts to bring the new hypochlorite disinfection system into operation ahead of schedule and an Environmental Protection Agency Consent Decree deadline.
The Barge Factor
The company’s history with the facilities and staff at Moccasin Bend gave the team a foundation for the disinfection upgrade. This prior experience helped the team bring the new system into operation ahead of schedule and the deadline set by the Environmental Protection Agency.