Sun Gazette

by SCOTT McCAFFREY, Staff Writer

(Created: Monday, August 2, 2010 8:20 AM EDT)

Work on the $568 million upgrade to the county’s 75-year-old Water Pollution Control Plant is expected to be essentially completed by the end of August, on budget and a year and a half ahead of schedule.

“Everything is looking good,” said Larry Slattery, bureau chief of the control plant, located on South Glebe Road near Route 1.

In the works for nearly a decade, the upgrade will increase the plant’s treatment capacity from 30 million gallons per day to 40 million, and will bring the facility into compliance with updated federal regulations. The upgraded facility is expected to not need another major overhaul for 30 to 40 years, although there will be tweaks as new regulations take effect and the community grows.

“We tried to make intelligent choices,” Slattery said of the reconditioning project. “It doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.”

Most of the cost of the upgrade is being paid by users of the county government’s water and sewer services, with some federal grant funds aiding the bottom line. About 80 percent of the wastewater treated at the plant comes from Arlington, with the remainder from Alexandria, Falls Church and Fairfax County.

Ongoing upgrades already have produced results. The amount of nitrogen released back into the water stream is down from about 17 milligrams per liter a decade ago to about 2.5 milligrams now. The discharge of phosphorous also has been cut significantly.

Increasing capacity by 10 million gallons per day is expected to cut down, if not eliminate, the need to release not-fully-treated water back into the water stream after major storms or during times when significant snowfall is quickly melted by warm temperatures. (Because the massive snows of this past winter melted slowly over time, the resulting runoff did not overtax the plant’s capabilities.)

More improvements will follow even after the bulk of the project is wrapped up. Next year, officials plan to have in place a backup generator to handle power outages, which can cripple water-control plants.

And as all the improvements come on line, county officials already have their eyes on a future prize: the “Platinum Peak Performance Award” bestowed by the National Association of Clean Water Agencies.

The existing pollution-control plant already has won several awards in the competition, but has yet to meet criteria for the platinum level. This year, that award was presented to just nine municipal water-treatment plants across the country, including Fairfax County’s Noman M. Cole Jr. Pollution Control Plant in Lorton, which treats 67 million gallons of wastewater per day.

Slattery praised the Fairfax facility as one of the tops in the nation. “Arlington aspires to be at that level of performance, or higher,” he said.