Clean Water Services is the water resources management
utility for more than 542,000 residents in urban Washington County, Oregon and
small portions of Multnomah County, Oregon and Clackamas County, Oregon, in the
United States. Clean Water Services operates four wastewater treatment
facilities, constructs and maintains flood management and water quality
projects, and manages flow into the Tualatin River to improve water quality and
protect fish habitat. They are headquartered in Hillsboro.
History
The headquarters of Clean Water Services in Hillsboro
In 1969, Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality placed
a temporary halt to new construction in Washington County. On February 3, 1970,
ten cities and sixteen sanitary districts combined to form the Unified Sewerage
Agency (USA). Later that year voters in the new district approved a $36 million
bond measure to consolidate, construct and upgrade USA's regional public wastewater
treatment facilities. The Durham Wastewater Treatment Facility opened in 1976,
which replaced 14 smaller treatment plants. Two years later six more treatment
plants were replaced with the opening of the Rock Creek Wastewater Treatment
Facility.
As population continued to grow in the service area of USA,
the water quality of the Tualatin River worsened. In 1986, the Northwest
Environmental Defense Center filed a lawsuit against the United States
Environmental Protection Agency, prompting Total Daily Maximum Loads for the
Tualatin River.[5] A Clean Water Act amendment adds regulation of storm-water
runoff, and the Rock Creek Facility achieves 99% removal of ammonia nitrogen.
In 1988, the Tualatin Valley Water Quality Endowment Fund is established by the
Northwest Environmental Defense Center lawsuit.
USA worked to maintain the quality of the Tualatin River by
establishing Surface Water Management (SWM) utility for water quality and
drainage in 1990, and began a $200 million facility expansion and upgrade
program to meet compliance deadlines. That same year, the agency established
the River Rangers program. USA begins consumption-based rates and combines
billing with water providers in 1994.
In July 2001, the United Sewerage Agency renamed itself as
Clean Water Service at a cost of $60,000. Clean Water Service's Operations
Building opened in 2003, which is used as a showcase of low impact development
and the Administrative Building Complex opens. It is the first LEED Gold
certified public building in Washington County. In 2004, the agency began a
program to add shade along the watersheds streams and river by planting trees
and shrubs to lower temperatures of the waterways. This program received
approval from environmental regulators and was in lieu of spending $150 million
to build chilling systems at the four treatment facilities.
The agency's Rock Creek facility won an EPA National Clean
Water Act Recognition Award in 2006, and in 2008 the Durham facility's Influent
Pump Station is the first to earn LEED Silver certification. The following year
the Durham plant becomes the United States' first wastewater treatment plant to
produce commercial fertilizer.In 2010, the Clean Water Institute was
established by the agency.
Services
Clean Water Services provides stormwater and wastewater
services in partnership with 12 member cities that include; Beaverton, Tigard,
Tualatin, Hillsboro, King City, Forest Grove, Sherwood, Cornelius, Banks,
Gaston, Durham, and North Plains.
Clean Water Services is a special service district that
serves as a separately managed and financed public utility. The Washington
County Commissioners serve as the board of directors for Clean Water Services.
As a wastewater utility, Clean Water Services cleans more
than 60 million US gallons (230,000 m3) of wastewater a day. The watewater
treatment process uses physical, biological, and chemical treatment to clean
wastewater to some of the highest standards in the nation. The cleaned
wastewater is then released into the Tualatin River. The wastewater is
collected by a vast network of more than 800 miles (1,300 km) of sewer lines
and 39 pump stations and routed to one of four treatment plants—Durham, Rock
Creek, Hillsboro and Forest Grove.
Hagg Lake looking south
Ten percent of the wastewater treated by Clean Water Services
is used for irrigation and in area wetlands during the summer months. Biosolids
recovered through the treatment process are sold to farmers in the region as
fertilizer. Additionally, the Durham Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility is
the first in the nation to recover fertilizer from a natural byproduct of
wastewater treatment. In 2007 the Durham facility began working with Ostara
Nutrient Recovery Technologies to construct a $2.5 million multi-reactor plant that allows the Durham facility to run part of
its waste stream through special reactors that transform potentially damaging
nutrients into environmentally friendly fertilizer, which Ostara sells commercially.
As a surface water management utility, The District’s
Stormwater Management (SWM) program improves water quality, protects fish
habitat and manages drainage by operating and maintaining the stormwater
conveyance system, establishing design and construction standards, regulating
activities that can impact the watershed and enhancing streams and floodplains.
Clean Water Services is the regional SWM utility for urban Washington County.
In cooperation with Washington County and the 12 member cities Clean Water
Services maintains and enhances the public drainage system to meet public needs
and to comply with strict water quality regulations set for the Tualatin River
drainage area by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
Clean Water Services offers a classroom educational program
called River Rangers geared toward 4th-grade students. Environmental educators
interactively teach students about the water cycle, watersheds, surface water
pollution, water conservation and wastewater treament. The 45-minute
presentation is used to educate students about how people impact water quality
through use of sewer and storm systems.
Tualatin River
Upper Tualatin River
The 80-mile (130 km)-long Tualatin River meanders slowly
through relatively flat terrain, draining more than 700 square miles (1,800
km2) of forested, agricultural and urban areas before joining the Willamette
River. The Tualatin is Washington County's only river, and it is used for the
regional drinking water supply, agricultural irrigation, and recreational
activities. Clean Water Services has worked to protect the health of the
watershed through programs such as the planting of trees and shrubs along the
water corridors.
Water supply
As communities in the Tualatin Basin continue to grow, more
water will be needed for municipal and industrial uses. In addition, more water
is needed to augment flow in the Tualatin River and its tributaries for water
quality. The two water supply options being considered assume aggressive
conservation targets for homes and businesses, wastewater reuse, and aquifer
storage and recovery.
These options are:
A 40-foot (12 m)
dam raise at Henry Hagg Lake with a raw water pipeline pumpback.
A multiple source
option that includes a 25-foot (7.6 m) dam raise at Hagg Lake with a raw water
pipeline pumpback and expansion of the Willamette River Water Treatment Plant
for municipal uses.
SUBSCRIBERS - (
LINKS) :FOLLOW / REF / 2 /
findleverage.blogspot.com
Krkz77@yahoo.com
+234-81-83195664
No comments:
Post a Comment