Down in the East Strand, standing out on the road alongside the Rondout Creek, next to Kingston’s wastewater treatment plant, you’ll notice they’ve replaced the old machinery which used to huddle there, hidden behind hedges, with five new massive, silvery-colored pipes clearly visible behind a barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence. You’ll notice the hum of its machines and the orange fire of the steadily burning biogas flare
Ending in green-capped elbows pointed at the ground, the pipes were installed to pass through the red brick wall of the treatment facility. They allow higher volumes of air to reach the aeration tanks which the bacteria and other microorganisms at work inside require as fuel for decomposing the organic matter in the water.
“These are the blowers that you see here, both outside and inside the building, that are going to help us save over 30 percent on our electricity bill,” said Kingston mayor Steve Noble. He spoke before a group gathered to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony outside the treatment plant on Friday December 15. An estimated 417,000 kwh per year will be conserved through the operation of the new blowers.
Started in 2018, the completed project also saw the rebuilding of the outfall at the bank of the Rondout Creek just east of the Cornell steamboat factory and Ole Savannah, at which the treated water referred to as effluent is discharged to mingle with the creek waters.
“We stood across the way a couple of years ago, and had our shovels out,” recalled Noble, “and very soon after we started the excavation on what is now the new outfall that we were able to build out into the creek.”
The state-of-the-art technology came at significant expense. “Nine and a half million dollars is a big investment for us,” said Noble. “We received an initial two million dollars in grant funding from New York State, and we then got a zero-interest loan to be able to help pay for the rest.”
Besides the $6,184,958 in short-term, interest-free state financing, Kingston received $1,975,000 for wastewater treatment plant upgrades, a portion of a $232-million grants package paid numerous municipalities for “drinking water and sewer infrastructure projects that are crucial to protecting public health and the environment.”
Any municipality looking to discharge wastewater into municipal sanitary sewers or waterways faces strict regulations in the form of permitting through the State Pollution Discharge Elimination System (SPEDES).
“Thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law that was passed, we were able to actually double that grant,” said Noble. “And so we were able to go from two million to four million, further reducing the amount that we’re going to have to borrow.”
Bigger than a fake lottery check, signage claiming that president Joe Biden is Building a Better America hangs on the fence. The sign credits the law mentioned by Noble, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clear Water State Revolving Fund.
Noble noted that the wastewater treatment plant hadn’t been modernized since the 1940s. “So we were working with some older technology here,” he said. “We were able to make it work within the existing infrastructure in what is a very small footprint for a plant that serves 30,000 people and can move 6.8 million gallons of water per day.”
Engineering consultants Tighe and Bond completed the preliminary engineering plans. CFI Contracting was the general contractor, Stilsing Electric did the electrical work, and Grant Street Construction built the outfall.
The new outfall made sure the treated water discharge was cleaner than the water the effluent was going into, the mayor said.
“It’s pretty amazing, actually,” he said, “that we can get that all done here and be able to stand out here today and it smells like … the Rondout Creek! So that’s a pretty good thing.”
High praise for a sanitation plant.
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