A public meeting was held recently at Cedar Creek Park regarding the Cedar Creek Sewage Treatment Plant. Since we found out about it rather late, and were unable to have a member attend, a friend of League agreed to give us a report.
The design of piping for treated sewage from Bay Park to Cedar Creek’s (35 year old) ocean outfall pipe has been taken over by State designers… Cedar Creek residents want to make sure there is no backflow of waste onto our beaches. After all questions are answered, a meeting will again be held with residents.
Bay Park is getting two nitrogen upgrades (side stream is one). There are currently no limits on how much nitrogen can be released to our ocean water. This may change. After treatment there will be a 12 month 16,500 lbs. a month rolling average of discharged nitrogen going through Cedar Creek’s outfall pipe. Nothing from Bay Park will be treated at Cedar Creek.
Someone asked what we do with biosolids from Cedar Creek. The answer was that biosolids are sent to different states, including Pennsylvania, Alabama and Georgia. The biosolids are disposed of by incineration, to landfills and as compost.
Someone brought up that Zachs Bay has an old, small sewage treatment plant that takes effluent from state facilities at the beach. He was advised that they only screen the sewage and it is then sent to Cedar Creek’s outfall pipe. This was brought up because someone was worried that this facility was causing odors in the neighborhood.
The biggest concern was the odors that occur at times, such as over weekends. We were advised that the tanks are covered. August, September and October seem to be the months when complaints spike. Odors are given off as effluent travels to the plant. The weather plays a roll in the spike due to inversion weather patterns. A fan blowing air the wrong way caused the recent weekend problem. Suez will look into a new odor elimination pilot program and an alert system to neighbors.
(Special thanks to Sandra D’Arcangelo)
