By: Libi Uremovic| Original Article at Patch.com
Press Release From the City of Beaumont:
Beaumont, CA — On Friday, January 9, 2015, Beaumont hosted a tour of the City’s waste water treatment plant for local water agencies. Staff members and elected officials from the Beaumont Cherry Valley Water District and San Gorgonio Pass Water agency joined Council member Mike Lara, City Treasurer Nancy Carroll, and Beaumont staff and consultants on the tour.
The tour covered the plant’s history, design, and capacity. Currently, the treatment plant serves over 11,000 residential units and has a maximum daily capacity of 4 million gallons. Discussions included the City’s progress in applying for Title 22 compliance and the planned desalination operation. If you have questions about the City’s waste water treatment plant, please contact Development Services Director Kyle Warsinski at 951-769-8520.
‘Maximum’ is the optimum word.
A Report from Wildan states the Sewer Plant is operating at 3mgd and states: “The City’s effluent TDS concentration averages about 410 mg/L over the past three years. Thus the City’s effluent TDS is about 80 mg/L greater than the regulatory limit in the R8-2014-0005 order for the BMZ and exceeds the regulatory limit for the STMZ.”
So I called the National Environmental Services Center to find out what sewer capacity is needed to service a population of 40,000. Craig Mains replied:
The US Geological Survey 2010 Water Census estimated the daily domestic water usage per person in the US to be roughly 88 gallons. So, a community of 40,000 people (with no big commercial, institutional, or industrial users) would be expected to generate about 3.52 MGD of wastewater. The 88 gallons per day includes both indoor and outdoor water use so any outdoor usage would be subtracted from the 3.52. So, a 4.0 MGD wastewater treatment plant should be able to treat the wastewater for a city of 40,000 people. Assuming 3.52 MGD water usage and negligible outdoor usage the plant be at about 88% capacity.
USEPA has provided estimates of daily domestic water usage by state and estimates that California falls in the range of 101 to 125 gallons per day per capita. In general, western states have a higher per capita water usage than eastern states. However, that is largely due to greater outdoor water usage so I think the 88 gallons per day is probably a pretty good ballpark estimate.
Craig Mains
National Environmental Services Center
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506-6893
I spoke to Craig Mains about why the City can’t pass Title 22 Compliance and he said that there’s two factors;
One reason would be if the waste water has to be run through the processing system too fast because it’s over capacity.
The other reason is that the equipment is inadequate or poor management.
For Beaumont; it’s probably a combination of the two.
40,000 is the population of Beaumont. The Trailer park in Calimesa is also attached to the City’s Sewer Plant. There is also the industrial and commercial businesses that contribute to the capacity.
It’s safe to say that beaumont Sewer Plant is at its capacity and can not service more houses or industry until proper infrastructure is built.