A report presented at Monday’s Denison Municipal Utilities (DMU) Board meeting showed that improvements to the wastewater collection system are reducing the volume of stormwater that enters the wastewater treatment plant.

Stormwater, which doesn’t require treatment, adds to the expense of operating the wastewater plant.

The report was prepared by wastewater manager Kevin Georgius and it focused on past and current efforts to stem the infiltration and inflow of stormwater into the wastewater collection system. It listed rainfall data for April and May of each year since 2016, comparing it with the gallons of water treated at the plant.

In April and May of 2016, the rainfall amount was 5.87 inches, and the wastewater plant treated a maximum flow of 2.27 million gallons per day and an average flow of 1.377 million gallons a day.

In April and May of this year, total rainfall was 11.30 inches, nearly double the 2016 rainfall, but the wastewater plant treated a lesser volume of water. The maximum flow was 1.296 million gallons per day and the average flow was 864,000 gallons per day. The data pointed to successful mitigation efforts.

This prompted board member Chad Langenfeld to say, “What that tells us is we’re treating four million gallons less at the wastewater treatment plant because less storm water is getting into the system, and that’s why we’re doing all this work.”

The report listed extensive work done since 2018 by the wastewater staff and contractors.

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Notably, a project that started in 2022 and is expected to be completed this year is the rehabilitation of 198 manholes. The manholes are being relined with concrete to keep the stormwater from seeping into the wastewater collection system. Many of the manholes were lined with brick.

Among other projects completed was the smoke testing of 165,000 linear feet of sewer main in 2021 to locate where stormwater was seeping into the system.

Reducing the volume of stormwater going to the treatment plant represents a huge savings, said DMU General Manager Rory Weis.

He was asked to see if the dollar-amount savings could be calculated.

Weis said he thought the Department of Natural Resources would have an interest in the report as an example to show to other communities that are having inflow and infiltration problems.

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