This is a first post for me. I've been watching the forum for about a year now. Thought I would contribute something.

On my way into work this morning, I noticed that the city was hooking a rather large generator up to the sewage lift station near the neighborhood. When I went home for lunch, it was gone. I called the sewage treatment plant. I told the gentlemen who answered what I saw earlier. He said, "well it is not my department, but I can tell you what they are doing. They are getting ready for Y2K next weekend." I asked how long they could sustain pumping under "those conditions". He said "as long as necessary". He implied that they would go from lift station to lift station pumping them down as needed.

I guess this is good news for residents of Milton, FL. A contingency plan exhists. Question is, how much diesel does the city have to sustain such a manually intensive work around?

- Batman

-- Batman (batman@batcave.com), December 23, 1999

Answers

Forget diesel, in that application, you could run it on methane!!

Kook

-- Y2Kook (Y2Kook@usa.net), December 23, 1999.

Methane generated onsite is already in wide use in such applications.

-- james hyde (hydesci@gte.net), December 23, 1999.

Well, when I peaked over the fence that surrounds the lift station, I did not see anything that looked like methane piping. I did see what looked like a TV antenna connected to a control box. I guess the antenna must relay telemetry on how the lift station is doing (or not doing).

The portable generator was gone by lunchtime, they were only testing the connectivity. My wife said that the power went out briefly this morning. The outage might have been related to the testing. I wonder how many lift stations there are in Milton? How many generators?

-Batman

-- Batman (batman@batcave.com), December 23, 1999.

Should have said: methane generated onsite is often used in applications at sewer treatment plants. As lift stations may be many miles from the treatment plant, it is less likely that it could be used at the lift station, unless already plumbed for the purpose. Sorry for the confusion.

-- james hyde (hydesci@gte.net), December 23, 1999.

The ironic thing is: those who did the work, who studied problems, who wrote the contingency plans, who funded the contingency plans, who bought the extra gear and who ar etsting it in place (at little late - but they are at least testing!) -

... are the ones with the least chance of needing the contingency planning!

If a city or water department has done a good job in remediation, they should expect fewer problems than those who ignored the problems....

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 23, 1999.