The Mayor reported this week that the wastewater plant continues to struggle during rain events.
During the heavy rains this week, the plant was flooded with large amounts of stormwater intrusion into the system. The plant staff manned the plant around the clock to be ready to take action if the plant failed.
For over a 24-hour period, it processed over 600,000 gallons which is an unacceptable amount for such a short period of time.
Due to the large-scale water intrusion, the town was required to notify the DEQ.
Billy Powell, Utility Maintenance Manager, believes the issue may be originating on Monroe Avenue, however most testing is required to confirm this.
Paul Plante says
For like at least the past forty years, if not more, cameras have been available to crawl through sewer pipes looking for water intrusion.
Not a lot of rocket science involved.
I don’t think you even need a high school education to use them.
David Boyd says
Perhaps it is a good thing the plant was originally designed for a 750,000 gallon capacity back when Bay Creek was going to triple the population of Cape Charles.
Paul Plante says
Years ago, when I was with the NYS Department of Health, back when it still was a health department, before Young Andy Cuomo’s dad made it into a whorehouse, I was trained as a sewage treatment plant operator so I would understand how they operated when inspecting them, I was taught that for many scientific reasons, or reasons based on science related to biological processes, that oversized sewage treatment facilities are not efficient, especially when having to deal with stormwater, which does not have the “food content” of sewage, as can be seen from Wikipedia on the subject, to wit:
Sewage may include stormwater runoff or urban runoff.
Heavy volumes of storm runoff may overwhelm the sewage treatment system, causing a spill or overflow.
Communities that have urbanized in the mid-20th century or later generally have built separate systems for sewage (sanitary sewers) and stormwater, because precipitation causes widely varying flows, reducing sewage treatment plant efficiency.
For a more formal technical look than what the elementary Wikipedia might provide, I would suggest the technical paper “Energy Efficiency Drivers in Wastewater Treatment Plants: A Double Bootstrap DEA Analysis, ” by Andrea Guerrini, Department of Business Administration, University of Verona, Via Cantarane, 24, 37129 Verona, Italy; Giulia Romano, Department of Economics and Management, University of Pisa, Via Ridolfi, 10, 56124 Pisa, Italy; and Alessandro Indipendenza, Department of Business Administration, University of Verona, Via Cantarane, 24, 37129 Verona, Italy, published: 27 June 2017, which states in the Abstract, as follows:
The relevance of wastewater treatment service has increased in recent years, since it has a significant impact on the natural environment.
A treatment plant facilitates energy generation, the recovery of products from waste, and the reuse of wastewater for industrial and irrigation purposes.
An indirect environmental effect is the high energy consumption for pumping water and for tank aeration.
The objective of this research is to develop a tool for measuring the energy costs of wastewater treatment plants and identifying how they can be reduced.
The method adopted is double-bootstrap data envelopment analysis.
The results show that the variables with a significant influence on efficiency are the chemical oxygen demand concentration; plant capacity; rate of used capacity, which positively affects efficiency; weight of industrial customers, which exerts a negative impact; and aeration system, with a negative impact for turbines.
This paper suggests the adoption of an effective control tool to monitor the costs drivers and energy expenditure of water utilities.
With respect to plant size, in the Introduction, it states thusly:
In addition, energy consumption is related to the load factor, the ratio between the load of wastewater inflows received to the design value of the plant.
Further, two particular studies have confirmed that undersized plants work better than do oversized plants, and energy savings increase when the load factor approaches 100%.
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Of course, that is pretty much useless information now, given that the over-sized plant is already built and in operation, which probably is a good thing with all the infiltration, which would have flooded out a more efficient smaller facility.
Count the blessings you have, I guess, and don’t swim with your mouth open where the sewer outfall is after a storm event with a lot of infiltration, and you should be alright.
MJM says
Here we are reading about, and complaining about, Pa. dumping nitrogen and phosphates into Chesapeake Bay, and our own house isn’t in order ? Just what do we think our overflowing treatment plant dumps into The Chesapeake , Smith Island Imperial Oyster Stout ?
Any IT mgr. or auto mechanic worth anything will tell you that the best maintenance is preventive maintenance. Yet here we are constantly on the verge of being one rainstorm away from planning to harm The Chesapeake with our irresponsible inaction.
We can’t close off an inflow of water ? Shouldn’t we be seriously embarrassed by that question ? Shouldn’t we hang our heads in shame that it is not at the absolute top of the list of things to be fixed ?
Please fix the inflow of water that does not need to be treated from rainstorms, and do it right away.
Then again, maybe we should just buy new town signs. We can have the arrow to the beach going in the opposite direction so fewer people see what we, ourselves, are doing to the beach.
Good Lord……..
Daniel Burke says
As a young Engineer I was part of a management team responsible for the installation of a new sanitary sewer system under a small town of 35,000 residents. It was an absolutely fascinating job.
When I came to Cape Charles 10 years ago it was apparent that the Town was overmatched in the technical expertise required to deal with its substantial water issues. One hint of a problem was when I saw people kayaking from Lake Monroe to Lake Madison in the aftermath of a large rain event.
I have witnessed many heroic attempts to alleviate the situation by digging up, digging in digging out, replacing and re-locating storm water lines. I have watched the ponds form and reform over and over in The Park. The aquatic life is diverse. Residential sump pumps pump away 365 days a year to help feed lake Monroe.
The problem that no one seems to want to address is very simply: water does not like to flow uphill. It needs help for that. These helpers are called pumping stations. The good news is they work; the bad news is they are expensive, very expensive. It’s a hard problem. No one wants to deal with it so the powers that be continue to whistle past the graveyard.
I once ran for Town Council and pointed out some of these issues including a mention about the shortcomings of our drinking water. I believe it was recorded. Ever go away for a few weeks and notice upon return your water smells like rotten eggs? That’s hydrogen sulphide. It’s in most water supplies in tiny amounts but you should not be able to smell it. It’s toxic. Then there’s bromine. Also in most chlorinated systems. It generates Trihalomethanes. The VDE monitors THMs closely. It’s carcinogenic. I believe we have been slightly over the limit for the 10 years I have been here. Anyway, when I ran for TC I was told that my focus was too narrow. I was too concerned about our water system and not the bigger issues facing the town. To that I always thought…wtf?
So because I don’t think it’s proper to point out problems and not suggest a solution I would (I can hear the air being sucked into business owners lungs already) attempt to pass legislation to put metered parking along the beach. That would help defray the expense to correct our water issues.
To anyone who slugged their way through this entire diatribe: you da man (or woman). Thanks.
Paul Plante says
I thought it was interesting and certainly informative.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience with the matter.
It was illuminating.
As the old saying goes, don’t have time to do it right, but do have time to do it twice.
Margot Gorske says
Dear Mr. Burke; 100%! and I have long wanted to see parking meters, if not beach fees, as they have in Cape May, NJ and elsewhere. Our water and drainage is atrocious more often than not. And the town is growing in population, new construction, and new businesses. This is an immediate problem that needs political will to address.
Paul Plante says
Daniel Burke, with respect to flooding in Cape Charles, which elsewhere has been attributed to carbon pollution in the air, I wonder if you might be familiar with a document titled “Eastern Shore of Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Inundation Vulnerability Assessment May, 2015” Prepared For: Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program Virginia Department of Environmental Quality 629 East Main Street Richmond, Virginia 23218; Prepared By: Accomack – Northampton Planning District Commission 23372 Front Street Accomac, Virginia 23301 (757) 787-2936
NOAA Grant No. NA13NOS4190135 Grant Year 2013 Task 53, wherein was stated as follows:
Relative Sea-Level Rise and Inundation
It is well documented that water levels are rising and land subsidence is occurring on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
The combination of these and other phenomena is referred to as relative sea-level rise and is the subject of this study.
The causes of relative sea-level rise are well understood and recent analyses suggest the rate is accelerating.
Three factors influence relative sea-level rise: ocean water volume, the elevation of the shoreline, and the movement of water in the ocean.
All three factors have recently experienced changes resulting in long-term and recent acceleration of water levels in the region.
The volume of water in the ocean is increasing due to additional melt water from the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers, ice caps, and ice sheets entering the ocean.
The ice in these locations is melting due to increases in global atmospheric temperature, which also is resulting in warming of the Earth’s oceans.
As the oceans warm, they expand, causing sea levels to increase as result.
Both of these processes are believed to have added over six inches to global sea level during the past century and have increased recently to the point where they now are adding water to the oceans’ volume at about twice the former rate.
There are a number of factors influencing regional land subsidence.
The primary cause is the continuing adjustment of the Earth’s crust following the melting and northward retreat of a massive ice sheet over one-mile thick about 20,000 years ago, referred to as isostatic rebound.
The pressure on the Earth’s crust created by the ice sheet caused the region around Virginia to bulge up.
This bulge has continuously been sinking and slowly readjusting ever since.
Other local processes that contribute to the region’s subsidence are the continued compaction of a buried impact crater underlying a 60-mile-wide area near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and the removal of groundwater at unsustainable rates.
While it is projected that the impact crater does contribute slightly to Northampton County’s subsidence rate, its influence on subsidence in Accomack County is not as well understood.
Groundwater withdrawals have been measured to have a significant impact on subsidence in specific areas west of the Chesapeake Bay, but are believed to have lesser impact on the Eastern Shore.
Cumulatively, isostatic rebound, crater sediment compaction, and groundwater withdrawals have caused subsidence in eastern Virginia that nearly doubles the effect of increasing and warming ocean volume.
Research of subsidence rates in eastern Virginia have shown that subsidence does not occur uniformly across the region.
Subsidence on the Eastern Shore was found to be relatively slower than the 3.1 mm/year experienced in the Hampton Roads area.
Furthermore, subsidence rates on the Eastern Shore were also found to not be uniform with rates varying from 1.2 mm/year at Kiptopeke to 1.6 mm/year at Wachapreague upwards to 2.0 mm/year at Assateague Island.
It is important to note that subsidence rates along roadways, especially older roads constructed from sediments from adjacent wetlands, could be even greater due to compaction of the unconsolidated materials making up the road bed.
The third factor influencing regional sea-level rise is the movement of water in the ocean.
Vast volumes of water move as currents in the oceans.
These can be driven by winds and differences in water densities.
The predominant current along the Mid-Atlantic Coast is the Gulf Stream, which flows northward and tends to move water away from the coast.
Recent changes to the speed and volume of the Gulf Stream have been observed resulting in recent rapid rise in local sea levels.
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Were it myself making the judgment based on that “science,” I would be thinking the infiltration problem is going to be getting worse, not better.
David Boyd says
Much of Cape Charles was built on a marsh, which might have something to do with it
As Mr Burke so aptly points out – water does not like to flow uphill
Paul Plante says
Do you then disbelieve the modern theory that the inundation of Cape Charles is as a result of carbon pollution that has changed the climate of Cape Charles and caused all that extra water to be there?
Should we discount or disregard the findings above from the study titled “Eastern Shore of Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Inundation Vulnerability Assessment May, 2015” Prepared For: Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program Virginia Department of Environmental Quality 629 East Main Street Richmond, Virginia 23218; Prepared By: Accomack – Northampton Planning District Commission 23372 Front Street Accomac, Virginia 23301 (757) 787-2936 NOAA Grant No. NA13NOS4190135 Grant Year 2013 Task 53?
Paul Plante says
And I truly wonder how many people today who live in Cape Charles and complain about the inundation being caused by carbon pollution, not natural causes, are aware of any of that history, that Cape Charles was indeed built over a marsh, or would give it credence as a source of the water inundating Cape Charles.
According to its own history (should people who live in a place know the history of the place they live in?) from the December 10, 1986 issue of the Eastern Shore News which is published on-line and is a fascinating read for those interested in the history of Cape Charles, which has been made world-famous by its association with the Cape Charles Mirror, we have as follows:
The Eastern Shore of Virginia, one of the earliest colonized areas in North America, remained a seafood and agricultural region with scattered small towns until the 1880s.
At this time, the land that became the Town of Cape Charles consisted of farmlands and wetlands.
The construction of what is now the Bay Coast Railroad led to the evolution of the area from a small agricultural community to a bustling railroad town.
end quotes
So the wetlands preceded the development of Cape Charles, and now, are probably somewhere beneath it, although the water to create a wetland does not simply back its bags and move along to somewhere else when the wetland is filled in, as they so often are to facilitate development at any cost so the municipalities can then rake in the property tax money.
Staying with that history:
In the late 1870s, the Pennsylvania Railroad served many of the large cities on the east coast.
However, along the Delmarva Peninsula, the railroad only came as far south as Pocomoke, Maryland.
Extending the railroad farther south was only feasible if a barge and steamer link could be built near the southern end of the Delmarva Peninsula, where freight and passengers could then transfer across the Chesapeake Bay to Norfolk.
When William L. Scott, a congressman from Erie, Pennsylvania with vast rail interests in the West, proposed this rail-sea link to Pennsylvania Railroad officials, very little interest was generated initially.
Despite a lack of support, Alexander Cassatt, then an engineer and Vice-President of Traffic with Pennsylvania Railroad, was interested in Scott’s proposal.
In 1882, Cassatt resigned from his position to work with Scott on his proposed project.
Traveling by horseback from Pocomoke, Cassatt personally laid out the 65 mile route the railroad would take and chose the spot for its southern terminus, harbor, and connecting channel, which he dredged at his own expense.
At the southern terminus, Scott envisioned a town that would meet the needs of the railroad and its passengers.
This led to the creation of Cape Charles.
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So, we are not looking at something slap-dash here, as happens so many times with towns associated with the railroads, especially out west, a subject Mark Twain made great use of in his novel “The Gilded Age.”
That Cape Charles was not some slap-dash creation that appeared overnight like Topsy, is apparent from the following:
In 1883, Scott purchased three plantations comprising approximately 2,509 acres from the heirs of former Virginia Governor Littleton Waller Tazewell.
Of this land, 136 acres went to create the Town of Cape Charles.
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If the liberals of Cape Charles were to know this history, I am sure they would be screeching their little hearts out because on the land that became Cape Charles, Littleton Waller Tazewell owned plantations and enslaved persons, so that in the 1830 U.S. Federal Census, his Norfolk household included nine free white people (5 his children) and a dozen slaves.
Although Virginia state slave censuses are not available online, and several federal census returns appear either missing or digitally misindexed, by 1860, his household included nine slaves (3 men, 5 women and one 2 year old boy) in Norfolk, and over 100 slaves across the Chesapeake Bay in Northampton County, Virginia (inherited through his wife).
Getting back to Cape Charles, and here is where the history becomes interesting and pertinent to this issue of inundation, to wit:
From its very conception, Cape Charles was a planned community.
Scott commissioned two engineers to do the official mapping of the Town in 1884.
The original Town was approximately 136 acres divided into 644 equal lots.
Seven avenues which extend from east to west were named for Virginia statesmen; the streets which extend north and south were named for fruits.
The original layout of the Town is still visible today.
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What caught my eye as an engineer was the statement that Cape Charles was a “planned community” right from the start, with engineers involved.
From that, one could surmise that the issue of water inundation was not considered then the same problem it is now.
Returning to that history:
By October 1884, the railroad’s first passenger and freight trains began running and within six months, two passenger steamers, as well as specially designed railroad freight barges, were regularly making the 36 mile Bay crossing.
Trains soon arrived daily from New York, and the Eastern Shore’s towns prospered as their produce could easily be exported to metropolitan areas.
By 1885, the first residential and commercial buildings existed in Cape Charles along with a volunteer fire department, a newspaper, a school, and multiple churches.
Incorporated on March 1, 1886, Cape Charles quickly became the economic focus of Northampton County.
Paved streets, electricity, telephones, and a central water and sewage system made the Town more cosmopolitan than other Eastern Shore towns.
end quotes
Now, to me as an engineer, there is a key data point to consider today – the fact that the Cape Charles central sewage system dates back to 1886 or earlier, which is a passage of time of 134 years.
Given that, one would think there would be a high likelihood of inflows of groundwater into the system.
But as Daniel Burke makes clear, all these years later, with a functioning city now in place, how does one confront the problem of old sewer lines in the ground?
Getting back to that history:
In 1911, wetlands near the Chesapeake Bay were drained and filled.
The original east-west avenues were extended west, and two more north-south streets were added: Bay Avenue along the edge of the Bay and Harbor Avenue between Bay Avenue and Pine Street.
The additional 38 acres of filled land provided 97 new building lots in the Sea Cottages Addition.
end quotes
Daniel Burke, is that at all relevant?