Overview

Treatment Plant History
Construction of the first public system of sanitary sewers and of the treatment plant began in 1966 and was designed to be expandable to meet the growth of the Town of Billerica population, which was estimated to be 50,000 by the year 2000. The original Wastewater Treatment Facility was designed to treat 0.8 MGD (million gallons per day), by using aeration tanks and final settling tanks followed by chlorination before discharge into the Concord River.

In 1975 the first upgrade took place, which doubled the aeration tank capacity, added an additional final settling tank and added a sludge disposal building which housed a coil vacuum filter for sludge thickening. This upgrade brought the plant capacity to 1.6 MGD.

In 1982, a return sludge building was added to house the sludge return pumps, which had been externally mounted on the final settling tanks.

In 1984, the Town of Billerica landfill was closed which was where the thickened sludge was disposed of. We began hauling liquid sludge by tanker truck to Greater Lawrence and then to Upper Blackstone Abatement Facility.

In 1988, construction began on the next expansion, which would bring the Wastewater Treatment Facility to its present capacity of 5.5 MGD.

The Latest Upgrade
The new facilities include: preliminary treatment (mechanically cleaned bar screens and grit removal equipment); primary treatment (three 60' diameter primary settling tanks, primary sludge pumps, primary scum pumps, primary sludge holding tank); replacement of the mechanical aerators in the aeration tanks with a diffused aeration system; three 60' diameter final settling tanks; three recalculated sludge pumps; secondary scum pump; new chlorination equipment; post-aeration facilities; plant water system improvements; blended sludge holding tank; sludge transfer pumps; new dissolved air flotation thickener; two 2 meter belt filter presses; associated polymer storage, transfer and conditioning equipment; sludge conveyors; composting facility and storage areas; and a new administration and maintenance building which houses the Plant Superintendent's office, control room, laboratory, personnel facilities, aeration blowers, maintenance shop, garage and emergency generator.

Composting Success
Composting started in Billerica in August of 1990 after the plant upgrade had been completed. However, in March of 1992, odor problems and complaints forced the composting operation to come to a halt. Liquid sludge had to be hauled (at $.03 cents a gallon) to the Upper Blackstone Wastewater Treatment Facility (WWTF), which had to be treated and incinerated (at $250.00 per dry ton). All of these additional costs added up to $175,000.00 for the year. In addition to all of this, the surrounding neighborhoods had formed an Odor Control Committee and were very vocal at Town Meeting. They were able to generate local newspaper interest in their story and this caused the shutdown of the composting operation.

In the fall of 1992, the Town of Billerica WWTF started experimenting with wood ash as a bulking agent instead of wood chips (which has been used in the original start up). With cooperation of the Odor Control Committee, the WWTF started composting at 50% capacity to show the plant could eliminate odors with a change in the bulking agent. By February of 1993, odor control had been successful and the WWTF started composting at 100% capacity. The WWTF has generated between 6,000 and 8,000 cubic yards of Type I Compost per year since 1993, due to the inception and use of wood ash and sawdust as a bulking agent.

In May of 1997, the Town of Billerica Wastewater Treatment Facility submitted an application to the EPA for the "Beneficial Use of Biosolids Award". This is a ten year old program that recognizes the outstanding efforts to promote the beneficial use of biosolids. The Billerica WWTF won third place and became the only Massachusetts facility to win a National Beneficial Biosolids Award in the history of the program. The award was officially received October 20, 1997 at the EPA Wastewater Management Excellence Ceremony in Chicago by the former Superintendent of the Billerica Wastewater Treatment Facility, Arthur Malcuit.