LYNN – The Lynn Water and Sewage Commission is discussing the possibility of rehabilitating portions of the city’s water treatment plant.
The Raymond F. Reardon plant is composed of the original pumps, piping, and valves as it was since its establishment in the late 1980s. Now approaching its 40th birthday, environmental engineering company APEX examined the conditions of the plant’s water treatment processing equipment and electrical systems.
APEX Principal Eric Kelley said, while the plant’s water quality is “top notch” and it “treats water very well,” the plant is “getting old, tired, and needs rehab.”
“Those things are going to require a lot of coordination and planning because of the way the plant is set up,” Kelley said at an August Water and Sewer Commission meeting.
The APEX team proposed three different possibilities with rehabilitate the plant:
- No shutdown of the plant, consisting of near-term improvements
- Temporary shutdown of the plant, either portions of the plant or its entirety
- A “much bigger” window of shutdown
Kelley said that a particular stressor at the plant is the filter gallery piping and valves. However, the plant was not designed to allow for engineers to simply rehabilitate portions of the system.
“If you start touching things in the filter gallery, it’s all large diameter welded steel pipe, so you’re talking about replacing it at all elevations with no way to isolate some of the filters from each other. You can’t just overhaul filter one; you have to overhaul all six filters,” Kelley said.
“So you have to look at taking the whole filtration system offline, which means getting another source of water for at least a dedicated period of time where you can get work done with the plant out of service,” he added.
If rehabilitation of the filter gallery piping and valves were to happen, this would involve re-arranging the design to get more flexibility.
As for the pumping stations, Kelley said they are getting “past useful life.” Since they are high-voltage, getting them converted to traditional voltage would require an entire pumping and electrical system upgrade at every one of the stations. He also noted that it will be difficult to find parts, equipment, and electricians who are willing to work with high-voltage equipment.
“Looking at the next few years, we’re focusing on the planning horizon. How do you go about executing these types of projects? What’s involved? And then you start phasing the work to see what can work best from a funding perspective, but also the logistics of the schedule,” Kelley said.
For next steps, Lynn Water and Sewer Commission Chief Engineer Anthony Marino suggested conducting a feasibility study to “take a look at the different options,” such as a phased implementation schedule.
Kelly said that the entire plant doesn’t necessarily need to be replaced.
“It could be just the filtration process. Your filters are doing 90% of your treatment. So, could you build a new filter gallery adjacent to what you have now, and it gets built while the plant is in use? It doesn’t mean you have to build what’s out there now in its entirety someplace out,” Kelley said.
Kelley added while the plant is large in scale, there is “lots of extra space for chemical storage, feed systems, electrical systems.” He also noted that the teams should “stage the work so that it supports future process upgrades.”
“You don’t want to just remove and replace it now to find out that it’s not going to meet your needs if you do have to change,” he said.
The feasibility study will take approximately six-nine months to complete, and Kelley is currently writing a proposal so the Water and Sewer Commission can approve it.
