Mark Hickok earned a BSE Environmental Engineering from Southern Illinois University. He has over 15+ years in the design and commissioning of water and wastewater applications. He also currently holds a Class IV Water & Wastewater License. Mark fulfills the role of Regional Sales Manager for Duperon Corporation.

With many wastewater collection systems dating back 100 years – with most more than 50 years old - aging infrastructure is being barraged by our modern conveniences. Lift stations, which are often just wet wells with pumps, particularly in remote areas, are being fouled by wipes and other rags and flushables for which our last-century infrastructure was simply not designed. The problem has gotten worse as so-called flushable wipes have gained popularity. While screens for lift stations do exist, the models that are currently available have disadvantages for smaller applications: they are too large to fit into smaller wells and manholes; they do not provide clean and dry screenings; and they have components that require servicing and/or replacing.

A new technology effectively protects pumps and removes debris at the point it enters the collection system. With this new solution, operators no longer have to compromise between manually cleaning clogged pumps or using maintenance-intensive grinders that send debris downstream to re-weave and become problematic again. This new solution to flushable wipes captures and removes rags and other pump-fouling debris while keeping organics in the collection system.

The compact design accommodates small lift stations and manhole applications.  Created for smaller collection systems with smaller budgets, the new technology has low power requirements and requires minimal maintenance: annual or less frequent servicing and confined space entries are not needed. An extended discharge chute compacts, stores and transports screenings up to 40 feet vertically without additional augers or mechanics and screenings are completely contained for odor control and aesthetics.

This presentation will consider field data where the new technology has been in alpha testing. The city of Saginaw had been experiencing the now-common problem of flushable wipes causing clogging at the lift station. We will explore how the City had been servicing the lift station’s clogged pumps two to three times per week in a confined space, manually removing rags from the check valves. After four months of running the new technology, the City of Saginaw has had zero instances of clogged pumps. After 68 days of run time, screenings in the discharge extension chute were nine feet of a total 26-foot capacity.