Aqua Assist brings a wastewater plant back to life

The wastewater treatment plant at Trinity, in East Texas, ran into significant problems with its oxidation ditch facility when both its aeration rotors failed. One went down. The second kept working, but only intermittently and for no more than one hour at a time. The plant supervisor was unable to get the rotor vendor to respond in a timely manner.

The plant, rated at 610,000 gallons per day, had a daily flow of around 375,000 gallons per day. In the absence of dissolved oxygen in the system, biological activity was declining quickly. After about two weeks, the plant was on the cusp of going septic.

Such a situation typically calls for plant operators to haul in activated sludge from another facility to revive the microbial community and restart the plant. It is a cumbersome and expensive process. In this case, however, Drylet introduced just one 25-pound pail of Aqua Assist in the oxidation ditch.

Microbial activity was revived within 24 hours. The plant remained alive for a whole week until the rotor vendor finally arrived.