A contractor and engineer are visiting town this week to inspect the wastewater treatment plant, Town Administrator Andrea Phillips said.<\/p>\n
A sewage grinder \u2014 dubbed a \u201cMuffin Monster\u201d \u2014 was installed at the plant to help break down the sewage before it enters the plant, but the plant is still experiencing backups. Possible fixes include a bar screen that would physically screen out debris before it enters the plant, or an intake pond where debris would settle to the bottom before entering the plant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working on some tweaks to the wastewater treatment plant,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cBut it could be expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Town staffers are testing a settling pond now to see if it would help, but it\u2019s too soon to tell if the plant will need a bar screen, which would be costly, Phillips said.<\/p>\n
The town has started an educational \u201cDon\u2019t Flush That\u201d campaign over the past several months, but people are still flushing non-biodegradable materials down the drain, Phillips said. Workers have found kids toys, diapers, pairs of jeans and other materials in the system that won\u2019t break down, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still trying to educate people,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cIt\u2019s expensive to take care of.\u201d<\/p>\n
People are advised not to flush wipes and diapers, even if they are labeled \u201cflushable.\u201d Medications, vitamins, fats, oils and leftover foods also should be left out of the drain.<\/p>\n
Other items that should not be flushed include: bandages, bandage wrappers, condoms, feminine products, cotton balls, swabs and pads, dental floss, teeth whitening strips, hair, kitty litter, paint and other chemicals.<\/p>\n
At last week\u2019s Mancos Board of Trustees meeting, the board passed an ordinance regulating backflow prevention and cross-connection control.<\/p>\n
Per state and federal mandates, all properties that are not single-family homes must have the proper cross-connection devices in place by 2020, Phillips said. The devices prevent contamination from sewage flowing back into the system.<\/p>\n
Cross-connection control has already been part of the town code, but the mandates require communities to get in compliance by a certain date. Half of properties must be compliant by the end of the year, but Phillips said she believes most properties in town already are compliant.<\/p>\n
Town staff members will be mailing a survey to property owners to determine whether any are not compliant. If a system on a person\u2019s property needs repairs, the property owner will bear the cost of repairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A contractor and engineer are visiting town this week to inspect the wastewater treatment plant, Town Administrator Andrea Phillips said. A sewage grinder \u2014 dubbed a \u201cMuffin Monster\u201d \u2014 was installed at the plant to help break down the sewage before it enters the plant, but the plant is still experiencing backups. Possible fixes include […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[83,60,295,294],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-68846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-mancos","tag-montezuma-county","tag-water","tag-water-supply"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68846"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=68846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}