Operational Excellence Award Presented to BJWSA
Pictured: EnviroMix’s Will King (far right) presents the award to the BJWSA team. Left to right: Keith Schubert (Wastewater Plant Superintendent, Hardeeville WRF and Cherry Point WRF), Brian Chemsak (Chief of Wastewater Plant Operations), and Ryan Yoder (Wastewater Plant Superintendent, Port Royal Island WRF).
The Beaufort Jasper Water and Sewer Authority (BJWSA) is a public entity that manages a service area of 750 square miles on the coast of South Carolina, an area that has an average elevation of 20 feet above sea level. The utility treats and delivers an average of 20 million gallons of drinking water each day to more than 60,000 customers. Also, for about 43,000 sewer accounts, they collect and treat nine million gallons of wastewater daily. BJWSA operates eight water reclamation facilities (WRFs) where they recycle the wastewater safely back into the environment.
EnviroMix began its partnership with BJWSA in 2016 when we started discussing technology solutions for two facilities in need of upgrades — Hardeeville WRF and Port Royal Island WRF.
In 2018, BJWSA completed a comprehensive upgrade on the Hardeeville WRF, expanding the design flow capacity from 1 to 2.7 MGD. The upgrade also enhanced the facility’s nutrient removal efficiency, improving the water quality of the Savannah River. EnviroMix’s BioMix Compressed Gas Mixing System was integrated into both the flow equalization basin and the anoxic selectors of the activated sludge process. The plant’s operating costs were reduced by 74% for the equalization basin and 66% for the anoxic selectors versus mechanical mixing.
Commissioned in 2017, a BioMix system was also installed in a 2.8-million-gallon equalization tank at Port Royal Island WRF. The BioMix system was selected to provide efficient processing of diurnal and wet weather flows as part of BJWSA’s proactive efforts to achieve outstanding treatment performance.
BJWSA selected BioMix because it provides both plants the ability to automatically adapt to changing mixing requirements with minimal in-basin maintenance and the lowest operating cost of any available mixing technology.
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“The decision to select EnviroMix’s technology included both lower operating cost and reduced maintenance expense versus alternative traditional mechanical or jet mixing systems with which BJWSA has experience.” Brian Chemsak, P.E., Chief of Wastewater Plant Operations
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The operators at Hardeeville and Port Royal were very pleased with their BioMix systems, enjoying the low maintenance demands and the flexibility of the technology. Several years later, EnviroMix approached the utility about a unique opportunity.
At BJWSA’s Cherry Point WRF, the waste activated sludge (WAS) holding tanks were operated with a conventional coarse bubble aeration system, designed to provide enough air to completely mix the tank based on the industry standard 30 scfm/1000 ft3. As is common with most WAS holding tank applications, the process is “mixing limited,” meaning the volume of air necessary to mix the tank contents is far greater than the volume of air required to satisfy the oxygen demand. EnviroMix proposed using the Cherry Point WRF as a testing site for an innovative, intermittent aerated mixing system, and BJWSA enthusiastically agreed. Pleased with the results, BJWSA purchased the first CAMix Cyclic Aerated Mixing System. CAMix was shown to provide uniformly mixed conditions and satisfy the process oxygen demand at 65% less power using blowers that were one-third the horsepower.
EnviroMix is honored to present the Operational Excellence Award to the outstanding team at BJWSA and to provide multiple communities in Beaufort and Jasper Counties with energy efficient, low maintenance mixing systems.