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Innovative Treatment Approach Resolves Septic Problems

The Tamarack Golf Club, located in Naperville, Illinois opened in 1989, including a club house with a restaurant. The wastewater treatment design for the club house originally included a 1000 gal grease trap, two flow-through aerobic units operated in parallel, followed by a 900 square foot buried sand filter, with discharge to one of the golf course lakes.

By 1995, system failure was apparent, with excessive grease throughout the system and elevated effluent Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Total Suspended Solids (TSS). The county health department informed the club that unless drastic actions were taken in a timely manner to rectify the situation, the club house would be closed down.

Tamarack retained Huff & Huff, Inc. to design and permit an acceptable system. A review of the existing loadings revealed daily flows up to 3,400 gallons per day, versus the original system's 1,000 gallon per day design capacity. As the flow monitoring was only over a limited time frame, the design basis selected was for 5,500 gallons per day as a daily maximum with a maximum monthly average flow of 3,000 gallons per day.

The final design included the following components:

A 4,500 gal grease trap for kitchen waste. The new grease trap, 4.5 times larger than the original, provides for a minimum of 48 hours retention at peak flow, allowing adequate time for the water to cool down and the grease to congeal. A lift station with two grinder pumps on slide rails, both controlled by custom variable frequency drives, was added after the grease trap.

Two sequential batch biological reactors, each 4,500 gallons in capacity. One influent pump is dedicated to one batch reactor. Air is supplied by two regenerative blowers through draft tube aerators that have proven to be maintenance free. Each batch reactor has a dedicated blower, eliminating expensive valving and piping.

Two leach fields, each 3000 ft in length, were installed. One leach field is dedicated to one batch reactor. The laterals are only 8-inches wide, placed 18-inches on-center. The field sizing was based upon the organic loading, that is matching the oxygen demand (BOD5) remaining in the wastewater after the batch reactors; to the diffusion of oxygen into the sidewalls of the laterals. Leach field floor area was not a consideration in the design, as traditionally used for leach field design. An experimental permit was issued by the Illinois Department of Public Health for the innovative leach field design.

A Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) controls the entire system, virtually rendering the system free of day-to-day attention. Not only does the PLC control which pumps and blowers are activated, it also monitors levels in all tanks and in the leach field, calculates the rate of water drop in the leach field, counts batches, monitors and displays error readings on all moving equipment. The PLC also restarts equipment if it becomes thermally overloaded, once it cools.

The system was permitted by the County Health Department in December, 1996 and was placed into operation in April, 1997. The expanded system has allowed the Club House to continue to operate without business interruption, and with the automation designed into the system, it has required minimal attention. The technology selected is ideally suited for higher strength wastes, such as from kitchens, especially those with a widely varying flow such as golf courses. Where municipal sewers are not available, Tamarack's solution has some attractive benefits.

Since Tamarack, H & H has designed five similar systems for country clubs, a temple, a meat packer and a pharmaceutical facility. The newer units allow the operator to monitor the entire process from a computer terminal through a modem installed with the PLC.