Where Does It Go?

Wastewater leaves your home from sink and shower drains, washing machines, dish washers, and commodes and enters the City's sanitary sewer system. A vast network of pipes lie unseen under the ground and function continually day and night to carry your wastewater to the Utility's treatment plant.

Jacksonville Wastewater Utility personnel work daily to clean and maintain these lines to ensure that your wastewater flows, either by gravity or pump, to the treatment plant to be cleaned and disinfected to a quality acceptable to be released into the environment.

Daily maintenance of lines includes cleaning and repair work. Lines are cleaned to rid them of grease build-up, grit or gravel, root intrusion, and other debris. The Utility uses a variety of equipment to perform this cleaning which includes vacuuming, jetting with water pressure, root cutters, etc. Repair work consists of uncovering lines and repairing holes, offset joints, and other problems in the main lines which have developed over years of settling, weather, and harsh usage.

The Utility operates a closed circuit television camera (CCTV) to identify problems that would otherwise be left to guesswork. The camera is lowered into the manhole and inserted into the main line. Utility technicians can observe the condition of the line as the camera is propelled through the system. Any problems in the line are recorded and these are then added to the repair list to be completed by the construction crews.

Treatment Process

At the treatment plant, the water is cleaned and disinfected to a quality required by the state and federal agencies, then released into Bayou Meto, which travels further downstream into the Arkansas River.

The Dr. J. Albert Johnson Regional Treatment Facility is an advanced-secondary, wastewater treatment plant permitted for an average annual flow rate of twelve million gallons per day (mgd).

• Primary Pumps: Wastewater is collected at a primary pump station where it is lifted to the plant Headworks by three (3) 60" diameter enclosed screw pumps.
• Headworks: Wastewater is coarse-screened through three mechanical bar screens and degritted in two (2) swirl-type grit chambers at the Headworks.
• Intermediate Pumps: Wastewater is mixed with return sludge and lifted to the aeration basins by three 72" diameter enclosed screw pumps located at the intermediate pump station.
• Aeration Basins: The aeration basins are three (3) oval, oxidation ditch type channels operated in parallel (or series) in the activated sludge extended aeration mode. The contents of each basin is mixed and aerated by four horizontal, brush-type rotor aerators to facilitate biological activity.
• Clarifiers: Aeration basin effluent is then divided between four 85" diameter clarifiers equipped with rapid sludge removal type mechanisms.
• Solids Management: Excess biological sludge is gravity-thickened and conditioned with polymer before being placed on drying beds for dewatering. The present sludge management methods involves disposal in a sludge-only monofil.
• UV Disinfection:  Because Jacksonville Wastewater Utility is, by all industry standards, considered a proactive facility by its peers in every aspect, in 2012 this facility updated its chlorine/sulfur dioxide disinfection system to a safer, more modern, and environmentally friendly ultra-violet (UV) disinfection process.  UV disinfection of water offers many unique and significant advantages over chemical disinfection. UV does not add any toxic chemicals to the receiving stream, and allows no negative water quality impacts.  In addition, microbial inactivation rates by UV are neither pH nor temperature dependant. UV disinfection is effective for a wide variety of virus and bacteria over a narrower dose range than chlorine. Since UV disinfection systems require short residence times, UV systems occupy a smaller footprint than chemical disinfection systems.

Laboratory

The Utility maintains an on-site laboratory where wastewater testing is performed to assess plant performance and monitor permit compliance. Laboratory personnel are trained to perform specialized testing to ensure the quality of the water (effluent) being discharged into the Bayou Meto.