ATHENS NORTH WASTWATER TREATMENT PLANT - Executive Summary |
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The City of Athens, Texas operates and maintains it's North Wastewater Treatment Facility located at North Pinkerton Street. Entrance to the plant is abated by fencing and locked gates. The plant is in a remote area away from the populace. The plant sets down hill from the town with the terrain continuing to fall away from town. The city utilizes chlorine and sulfur dioxide gas in its treatment process. The 1 ton containers these gases are contained in are ASME coded vessels. During the design and conctruction of this plant the engineers used giudelines set forth by the National Chlorine Institute. All external piping is protected from accidental damage by channel iron. The feed equipment is designed to automatically shut down if a major leak occurs in the piping or feed equipment. All equipment is inspected daily. All personal that work inside the plant have received instructions in the safe handling of chlorine and sulfur dioxide as well as the use of a self contained breathing appar atus. Each employ is required to attend a class on how to read and interpret a MSDS sheet within their first 6 months of service. As a first responder each has been trained in the proper procedure to shut down chemical feed systems, or report to to the emergency responce personal. The Athens Fire Department is responsible for for writing all emergency responce procedures, and coordinates all emergency responces. A copy of the Cities emergency responce program has been filed with the Henderson County Emergence Responce Cooridinator's office. For both the worse case senario and the alternative senario we used the EPA publication Guidence for Wastewater Treatment Plants. In the alternitive senerio we used a leak at one of the pipe fittings for the bases of computations since this is more likly to occure. All though a portion of town would be affected if the Worse Case Scenario as described by the EPA were to occure, the probability of such an occurance is highly improbable. Due to the sa fe guards buildt into the the system, the physical properties of chlorine and sulfur dioxide, the geographical location, and terrain around the location of the plant any release of any amount of gas capable of having any off site to human life is unlikely. There has not been any off site incident in the history of the plant. The closes public receptor to the chlorine and sulfur dioxide storage area is 0.4 miles away and at a elevatiion 30 feet higher. |