Operational Excellence Award Presented to Grandville Clean Water Plant

EnviroMix’s John Koch (far right) presents the award to the Grandville CWP team. Pictured left to right: Tim Takens (Maintenance Lead Operator), Joe Worm (Operator), Scott Yonkers (Assistant Superintendent), and Eric Vroman (Asset & Infrastructure Supervisor).

EnviroMix recently presented its Operational Excellence Award to the outstanding team at the Grandville Clean Water Plant (CWP) for exemplary operation of their FlexZone Adaptive Process Volume System.

In 2024, the city of Grandville, Michigan, completed a FlexZone upgrade to optimize the plant’s bioreactor environment and improve aeration control of dissolved oxygen (DO).

Released by EnviroMix in 2022, the FlexZone is a patented, versatile secondary treatment solution that integrates BioMix Compressed Gas Mixing, diffused aeration, instrumentation, and proprietary control algorithms to ensure precise aeration control and meet treatment objectives. The FlexZone dynamically adapts anoxic and aerobic environments to changes in loading and temperature.

In addition to managing bioreactor volume utilization, Grandville’s FlexZone was designed with two primary benefits in mind: prevent over-aeration and incorporate denitrification to recover alkalinity. The FlexZone was easily incorporated into the bioreactor, utilizing existing aeration grids and instrumentation while adding new air flow control equipment, BioMix, and upgraded controls. The system’s complementary mixing and aeration equipment offer concurrent operation, allowing Grandville to adapt process environments to meet current conditions without sacrificing treatment capacity to meet future design loading conditions.

Grandville’s assistant superintendent, Scott Yonkers, stated, “Installing the FlexZone has made perfect sense from every aspect considered, including but not limited to electrical savings and alkalinity recovery.”

The FlexZone upgrade has delivered Grandville:

• 20% reduction in aeration energy consumption for an estimated annual energy cost savings of $60,000.
• Immediate process improvements due to the adaptable transition between aerobic and anoxic environments within the same reactor.
• Promotion of denitrification to reduce effluent nitrate and reclaim alkalinity.

EnviroMix will continue supporting the team at Grandville CWP to optimize the FlexZone system and achieve results that benefit the entire community.