3 pumps down as wastewater plant fights floodwater

Flooding has inundated Shreveport's sewer system, causing the North Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant, just off Russell Road, to work overtime.

The plant normally takes in 3 million gallons of wastewater per day but now is taking in at least an estimated 60 million gallons of flow a day.

"We're not set up to pump that. We're not set up to treat that," said Barbara Featherston, Shreveport's water and sewage director.

Featherston said about 95 percent of what's coming into the plant is Red River water. The remaining five percent is sewerage, she said.

Everything around the plant — including manhole covers elevated 10 feet high to account for flood conditions — is underwater, she said. On the site, water covers the parking lot.

The plant is like an island sitting in a bowl.

The treatment plant has six influent pumps that take water into the plant. But three of the six are down, Featherston said.

Two were moved down prior to the flood, she said. A contractor couldn't fix the pumps because of the flood. The third pump stopped working a couple of nights ago.

There are pumps on standby, and the Louisiana Army National Guard helped helicopter in two pumps to supplement and provide relief to existing equipment which has been working 24/7. Featherston said they are keeping up with what they have.

Despite water overwhelming the plant, Shreveport still is required to meet all the deadlines of its federal consent decree to rehab its aged and deteriorated sewer system and reduce sanitary sewer overflows that expose residents and the environment to bacteria and disease.

"In this kind of flooding and severe storm system situations, it's not uncommon to see sewer overflows," said Jennah Durant, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 spokeswoman.

Durant said large volumes of water can overwhelm and damage portions of the wastewater treatment plant. Overflows are of great concerns in densely populated areas where more people can come in contact with bacteria, she said.

The recent flood event does not change the federal government's demands, Durant said. Shreveport will have to detect and report any overflows that occur as result of the flooding.

Mike Steele, the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness spokesman, also said water quality testing would be done on a case by case basis if Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality inspectors discover untreated wastewater areas of concern after the river recedes.

For now, the greatest concerns are the volume of water entering into the treatment plant and trying to maintain that plant so it's still operational when the water recedes, Featherston said.

"What is potentially going out into the water is a such a small amount of anything but still our system is inundated. We don't have overflows. We don't have anything flowing out of our system. Everything is coming into our system but that's worse for us," she said.

The North Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant is in an area designated as phase two in the city's consent decree, a mandate from the federal government to fix Shreveport sewers. Investigation phase started there prior to the weather event, she said. Some of those operations have shifted to other areas in phase two.

The city's been in contact with the EPA and DEQ, Featherston said.

"We will let EPA know we need for this to go down for us to finish this work," Featherston said. She still anticipates the city will meet its federal deadlines.

In Bossier City, Jeffery Anderson, director of public utilities, said the city began seeing increases Thursday in the volume of flow from the main line leading to its treatment plant off Barksdale Boulevard.

"We peaked out at what would be the equivalent of 30 million gallons per day of flow the other night," Anderson said. The plant normally takes in 6-10 million gallons per day on average, he said. It's taking in about 9-10 million gallons per day now.

To hedge off sanitary sewer overflows, Anderson said his department concentrated its efforts were centered upstream of the plant to prevent the main influent sewer line feeding the plant from filling up with river water. Added flow entered the line near the war veterans home on the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway.

"Because if that line became flooded by the river, it would have been filled up with river water. There would have been no room in that line for sewer water, so that water would have been basically ran out on the ground in other locations in town," he said.