Recent high levels of ammonia at the Kyle wastewater treatment plant, owned by the city of Kyle but co-permitted with Aquasource, a private water company connected to Aqua Texas, could lead to more fines from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Kyle contracts with Aquasource to operate the facility – at a cost of about $100,000 a month. Aquasource built and owns the plant but the city owns the land. Under a multiyear lease-purchase agreement, City Manager Lanny Lambert said the city will eventually own the plant.
Following a major spill last December that released several thousand gallons of partially treated effluent water into Plum Creek, TCEQ hit the plant’s co-permitees with an
$85,000 fine.
Nick Dornak, the Plum Creek Watershed Partnership coordinator, said routine monitoring by his agency at the Kyle facility found sludge in the creek. The partnership is tasked with protecting the watershed region in the Hays and Caldwell counties.
“We called the city of Kyle and the Texas Parks & Wildlife Spills and Kills group,” he said. “Aquasource did ultimately report it, but by then it was a solid mass [of sludge] a half mile downstream.”
The sludge had to be removed and disposed in accordance with permit issued by TCEQ.
That was the second time in as many months the facility was fined by TCEQ for a major sewage spill. An earlier incident in November 2012 led to a $20,000 fine, according to the Plum Creek Watershed Partnership.
Dornak said TCEQ also requested dewatering and additional clean up by Aquasource, which began in early March.
At the time of the November spill, the level of E. coli, a potentially hazardous bacteria, found in the effluent water was more than 4,840 colony forming units (CFU) per 100 mL. Recommend limits for the bacteria in effluent water are 126 CFU.
The city and Aquasource are engaged in a lawsuit, according to Kyle City Manager Lanny Lambert, in part over who will pay the $85,000. He said the plant has been cited for similar issues in the past and Aquasource paid the fines, because as the operator, such fines are consideredan operational expense. This time, however, the two entities are at loggerheads over who is responsible.
The permitees also had the option to use a portion of their fi ne in what’s called a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP). Plum Creek Watershed Development requested two SEPs totaling about $45,000.
When Dornak last heard from an Aquasource lawyer earlier this summer, he said the company declined to pay for the SEPs. Both projects were ownstream of Kyle, but Dornak said the Plum Creek Watershed Partnership felt it was a good opportunity for the wastewater treatment plant permitees to do something positive for the communities and wildlife affected by the spills and high levels of ammonia and E coli over the past few years.
The Kyle plant is designed to output non-potable effluent water that runs into Plum Creek, which eventually makes its way to the San Marcos River.
Quality monitoring at the Kyle wastewater treatment plant, performed periodically by the Plum Creek Watershed Partnership, found high levels of ammonia in July, according to Dornak. The plant operator performs its own testing and is required to notify TCEQ of any issues.
The recommended level of ammonia in the effluent water should be 3 mg per liter on average over a week’s worth of samples. In the July tests, Dornak said, “One [reading] was close to 20 and one was 10 or 15, so it will skew their average and likely put them out of compliance.”
That, he said, could lead to additional TCEQ sanctions. But he said his real concern is that “folks downstream are literally getting the sh- - end of the stick.”
Compared to six other local wastewater treatment plants, including Buda, Lockhart and Luling, the wastewater discharge at the Kyle plant had ammonia levels in July that were above what is acceptable for effluent.
Combined with the past two years of monitoring data, including high levels of E. coli several times, Dornak said, “I have no hesitation in characterizing this situation as an extreme public health risk.”
Tertiary – higher level – treatment of effluent is not currently required by TCEQ, but Dornal said the Watershed Partnership encourages wastewater treatment plants to go above and beyond current requirement in anticipation of more stringent standards over the next 10-15 years.
However, the facility’s permit with TCEQ does not impose any limits on E. coli. That will change in 2015, Dornak said, when new permit requirements start.
“Samples collected from Plum Creek at Heidenreich Road typically contain some of the highest E. coli concentrations in the entire watershed,” Dornak said.
The Kyle wastewater plant is supposed to have E. coli numbers at or below 126 colony forming units (CFU) per 100 mL. Data from wastewater treatment plant water quality monitoring conducted by Dornak’s group shows the level at the Kyle plant was higher than 4,840 CFUs three times since April 2011. The levels were more than 200 CFUs 11 times – of those, six were higher than 1,000 – in the same date range.
Rather than meeting E. coli limits, Dornak said the plant uses chlorine treatment, which at a certain concentration for X amount of time should kill the bacteria. The issue, he said, was the plant didn’t have a flow regulator for the chlorine.
“These data clearly show that the chlorine treatment process used at the Kyle WWTP has not effectively lowered the E. coli concentration in the effluent to a safe level for the stream’s designated use,” Dornak said.
Effluent water from the Kyle facility is currently used to irrigate the Plum Creek Golf Course.
If the permit is renewed, the standards for the Kyle plant will change in 2015 when E. coli limits go into effect. Dornak said part of the issue that led to the November and December spills at the Kyle wastewater treatment plant was that the facility had a parttime operator, an Aquasource employee who also oversaw several other facilities.
“Sometimes he was only at the plant an hour a day,” Dornak said.
That has since changed and the plant now has an operator, an Aquasource employee, who is at the facility at least five hours a day. Conditions have improved, according to Lambert, who had not yet been informed about the high ammonia levels in July.
