THE UNSUNG HEROES OF THE WASTE WATER TREATMENT PLANTS

THE UNSUNG HEROES OF THE WASTE WATER TREATMENT PLANTS


Most of the public view them as slackers because they work for the city. They are considered abnormal by most people because they work in a place that collects and treats human waste. The mayor and the city council use them along with other employees as an excuse to raise taxes. Management considers them uneducated, and ignorant, because most don’t have a college degree. And their department, whatever name it’s called, will be ranked on the bottom of the popularity scale, compared to other city department by the mayor, city council, and public. The public is willing to do whatever is necessary to support the police and fire departments and will make sacrifices to get their garbage picked up. But they want their human waste disposed of quietly and out of sight and out of mind and of course with no smell and very little cost. Discussing the needs for collection, treatment and disposal of sewage, is the least popular subject for any city leaders to discuss and deal with.

These people are waste water plant operators and they collect human waste and sometimes industrial waste and treat and dispose of it to protect their community and the communities located downstream from their community. It is estimated by some, that by removing the water pollution from their communities, that they save more lives than all the doctors, nurses, polices and firemen of the world put together each day. But yet, the level of respect they receive from the public is far below any other occupation because they work with sewage.

I was a waste water plant operator for 37 years. When I retired I was the supervisor over the liquid side of a 240 MGD waste water treatment plant. In addition to that I was responsible for about 65 waste water pump stations, 7 Combined Sewage Overflow treating facilities (CSOs), 7 storm water pump stations and a levee system. I was responsible for five Chief Operators and each one of them was responsible for five plant operators. In order to manage all of this successfully I had to have a lot of good operators help me operate this system.

I belonged to the Water Environmental Federation, (WEF) the Kentucky – Tennessee Water Environmental Association (Ky-Tn WEA), and the Tennessee Water and Waste Water Association (TWWA). I served as a Ky-Tn representative for the WEF Professional Waste Water Operation Division (PWOD). I served as Secretary of treasure, Vice Chairman, Chairman, for the Lower East Section of Tennessee and State Chairman for the TWWA. I have given you my resume to show you the opportunities that I have had to meet and talk with and become friends with hundreds of Waste Water Plant operators. And I have taken the advantage of my positions to visit several waste water plants in Kentucky and Tennessee. I am proud to be associated with the people that work to preserve our health and wellbeing from illnesses and diseases associated with water pollution.

But I will not publish this article leaving you with the idea that I think all waste water plant operators are angels of mercy. In my career, I have seen and known and dealt with some undesirable employees that didn’t need to be given responsibilities for protecting the public’s welfare. But luckily those people are an exception to the rule and don’t fit the general description of the Waste Water Plant Operator being discussed here in this article.

There are a lot of people that get into the waste water treatment industry as operators and want to make a career out of it and treating waste water becomes a mission for them. If not for their dedication, the industry would lack advances in furthering the knowledge and technology of treating water pollution. There are many good waste water operator organizations that have programs to recognize these people with certificates, awards and plaques.

But what about the operator that is always at work on time, and stays until quitting time. And while he is there he is doing what he gets paid to do. And those operators that come in to work in emergencies, if they are needed, and stay as long as they are needed, during rain and snow storms or when another operator has to be off.

What about the operators that stays behind to operate the plant while management, supervisors and career minded people go out of town to attend association meetings, and conferences and collect awards. If not for them earning those awards would be impossible.

The majority of operators have a normal life outside of work and this is where they want to spend their time instead of going out of town and attending banquets. They want to be with their family, do things in their church, go fishing and hunting, enjoy a hobby, so for this they rarely are recognized for the work they do at the plant, because they have a greater personal interest in other areas.

In large plants it is the grunt or Plant operator that is doing the foot work, collecting samples, collecting and recording data, making adjustments to the processes, checking for equipment malfunctions, draining clarifiers and tanks if necessary, unplugging sludge lines, priming airlock pumps. Some managers think they can convert the plant to computer control and the need for these people will go away. To my knowledge only very small, simple operating system has been successfully operated with computer control. The plant manager must have operators that he can trust to collect and record accurate data because much of it goes on a state report that the supervisor is under oath to report accurately.

Let’s not ignore the small town waste water treatment plant operator that may be the only one on duty. He is the operator, chemist, mechanic, and may fulfill the administer duties such as completing and signing the state report. He has to be trusted completely because like the large plants there may not be checks or balances. But in my 37 years I have heard of very few operators failing to carry out the duties they had been entrusted with.

As a supervisor I wanted people on my team that came to work when they were scheduled, willing to work if needed, even if they weren’t scheduled, care enough about their job to want to learn what they could about the job, reliable to do their duties because they took pride in doing what they got paid to do and doing it right, able to make decision in most situations instead of waiting on someone else, and people that asked how, when, and where, not why. I found that the people I respected and valued most were those operators that looked for a way to complete the job, instead of looking for reasons not to do the job at hand. And most of these people do it without thoughts of receiving an award or recognition for just doing what they get paid to do.

The one thing they don’t need or deserved, is to be considered second class citizens, because they take a waste that is generated by people from their homes, a product that the public doesn’t want to hear about, a product that the public never want in their sight, and they treat and dispose of it, to protect the public’s health and well being. If you want to know how important they are to your city and civilizations, read about the Black Plague, where millions of people died, before they found the cause of the disease was rats living in sewage and fleas carried by those rats were biting the people and spreading the plague. No civilization can survive living in its own filth. No matter how primitive a society or culture is they have learned to separate themselves from their human waste.

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