Horsepen Bayou MUD - Executive Summary |
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The Horsepen Bayou Municipal Utility District owns and operates a municipal wastewater treatment plant in the Horsepen Bayou district. This wastewater treatment plant is responsible for the treatment of the sanitary waste from several surrounding subdivisions, households and small local businesses. Horsepen Bayou MUD contracts the operation of this wastewater treatment plant to Muniservice Corporation. Both Horsepen Bayou MUD and Muniservice are committed to the safe operation of the wastewater treatment plant. The wastewater plant utilizes one substance that is listed on the Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA) hazardous substances list. This substance is chlorine. The chlorine is stored in individual one ton cylinders, and no more than two are ever stored on site. The chlorine is used to disinfect the wastewater prior to release from the treatment plant. As a part of the Risk Management Plan, both a worst case and alternative release scenario were modeled using an EPA devel oped and approved dispersion modeling program. The worst case release scenario is a complete loss of inventory in a ten minute period. The consequences of such a release would result in offsite impacts for chlorine of 1.9 mile from the facility. Several households, a school and recreational park could be impacted. Leaking valve and rupture disk are typical alternative release scenarios. The offsite impact for this release is 0.2 miles from the facility for chlorine. This scenario results in minimal offsite consequences and could effect only a few households close to the facility. Regardless of the type of release, the treatment plant is equipped with a monitoring system to detect chlorine. This monitoring system sounds locally on the plant, and automatically notifies the plant manager and operator 24 hours a day of the specifics of a release so that the proper action may be taken. The facility has had no history of releases of chlorine. Horsepen Bayou MUD has coordinated with local emergency response facilities and fire departments to ensure that in the event of an accidental release, that qualified and trained individuals will respond quickly to minimize offsite impacts. Both Horsepen Bayou MUD and Muniservice are committed to the ongoing safe operation and handling of hazardous substances and equipment that are necessary in order to provide the service to the community. |