New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Derby WPCA employees work overtime upgrading waste treatment plant
DERBY — Employees at the city’s waste treatment plant are getting a lot of overtime overhauling the aging facility.
The work is happening at the same time the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments is conducting a regionalization study on the area’s sewer capacity — and the first phase of the study revealed that the Derby plant — last upgraded in 1973 — is in dire need of major upgrades.
Edward Abel, superintendent of the plant since 2018, said that he was faced with paying for equipment breakdown and weekend plant work when he put together his first budget proposals. The work was needed but it did mean a large increase in overtime for workers during the past fiscal year.
“As far as overtime goes, when we have to stay late to run a piece of equipment, equipment failure, we got to stay late to fix it,” Abel said.
The facility is in such a state of disrepair that, he said, the entire plant needed to be overhauled. If the plant is to be modernized without the regionalization plan, it would cost an estimated $70 million over a 20-year span, according to the phase 1 study results.
Abel said he’s optimistic that employees will be able to handle the workload without excessive overtime once the plant is upgraded.
Jack Walsh, the chair of the Water Pollution Control Authority, said that the WPCA is making progress on the upgrades outside of the plant as well. So far, three pump stations have been built and there are plans to upgrade 40 miles of sewer pipes.
Many of the pipes are more than 100 years old, he said.
While plant workers are getting overtime this year, they have used less than half of their overtime budget for 2020-21, he said.
“The work on the main plant is the most challenging piece of all this, but none of it has been easy. We’re talking about a plant and system that has needed major work for a long time. Every step is costly and complex,” Walsh said.
But while plant staff is working overtime, the facility isn’t currently hiring additional workers, Walsh said.
“We are waiting for the results of the regional study before making any staff moves,” he said.
One thing the regionalization study is expected to look at is whether the area would be better off if its individual waste water plants were consolidated with other facilities in the area.
Rick Dunne, the executive director of NVCOG, said that eventually the study will lay out options for Derby and other cities in the Valley on how they should run their wastewater treatment plants down the line.
But he cautioned that regionalization remains up in the air.
“We would anticipate that towns are going to maintain their own respective collection systems, unless they agree to join into one regional authority. And it's far from certain whether they're going to do that,” Dunne said.
As of now, the Derby WPCA is also working on a plan to upgrade the sewer pipes on Main Street. Walsh said he is hoping that construction will begin next year.