The Windber Area
Authority (WAA) was formed in 1967 as a non-profit agency. Its purpose is to
provide water and sewage treatment service for approximately 6,000 customers in the
Windber Area.
The original sewage treatment plant was constructed in 1970 and is called the Ingleside Sewage
Treatment Plant (STP). The plant is located in Richland Township near McNalley Bridge on U.S. Route 219.
Sewer lines transport sewage to the Ingleside Sewage Treatment Plant from Paint Township, Paint
Borough, Windber Borough, Scalp Level, Adams Township and Richland Township.
The original plant consisted of a series of lagoons designed to treat the sewage to secondary treatment effluent standards. Sewage was conveyed through four aerated lagoons in series for treatment and was ultimately discharged to the Stony Creek River.
In the 1970's, the Stony Creek River water quality was poor due to acid mine drainage so it was not necessary for more advanced treatment. However, due to improvements in the Stony Creek River water quality, it became necessary to improve the quality of the Ingleside STP effluent to help support aquatic life in the river.
In 2002, WAA entered into a Consent Order and Agreement (CO&A) with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PaDEP) which mandated WAA construct a new STP capable of more stingent effluent requirements set by PaDEP. In addition, WAA was required to construct facilities to equalize peak wet weather flows to eliminate routine sewage bypasses into area streams. The proposed facilities also needed to be designed to eliminate the seasonal odor problems associated with lagoon turnover in the Spring and Fall.
WAA decided the existing lagoon process would be replaced with a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) plant, which is a variation of an activated sludge biological treatment process. It was also determined equalization would be needed to temporarily store sewage during periods of high flow to help prevent sewage bypasses into streams from occurring.
To the greatest extent feasible, the design and construction included utilization of the existing facilities. The new SBR plant has a design capacity of 4.0 million gallons per day (MGD) and is capable of treating wet weather flow rates of 10 MGD.
WAA obtained a PennVest loan to fund the project in the amount of $16 Million. The new SBR plant was put on-line in February 2007 and is currently meeting the required effluent limits and working well.
The Engineer for the Project was
and the contractors were as follows: