Sewer Plant’s Last Stink
Fillmore’s old sewer system is about to disappear. In its place will be park grass.
Fillmore’s old sewer system is about to disappear. In its place will be park grass.
By Bert Rapp — Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

By July 15, 2009 the sewage flow to the 1955 Wastewater Treatment will be completely redirected to the new Wastewater Recycling Plant. After the week of July 15th the shut down and decommissioning of the old plant will begin. The old plant will likely give us a few odors as a goodbye present.

A sewer treatment plant is a complex organism that lives on the energy in the sewage. As the bacteria, protozoa, and rotifers consume the waste they clean the water. When a treatment plant’s food supply is cut off it dies and begins to stink. To control the odors as much as possible we will feed the plant molasses as a replacement food supply while we take each process off line cleaning and disinfecting each component.

The new wastewater recycling plant was started up on June 18th as we imported 9 tanker truck loads of bacteria from the Wastewater Treatment Plant in Santa Clarita. Then we fed these new bacteria with our Fillmore sewage gradually growing their numbers. For the first week we pumped 90,000 gallons per day of sewage to them and on June 24th we gave them 75% of the sewage from the City. Finally on or about July 15 100% of the sewage flow will be directed to the new plant completely turning off the old plant.

At the old 1955 plant each component will be cleaned and rinsed with chlorine. However as the disinfection takes place there will be odors. We will work as quickly as possible but it will take several weeks. By mid August the plant should be clean and ready for demolition. Some time in late August or early September the old plant will be demolished and restoration of the site will begin.

The current plans are to make the old sewer plant site an extension of the new Two Rivers Park. The City has applied for a $1,000,000 River Parkways grant under Proposition 84. So far our grant application has made the first cut and is with the Grant Selection Committee. If we receive this grant we could fill the some of the percolation ponds with soil, install irrigation and planting and build some walking trails on the site.