Mid-Atlantic- A“Baffling Solution”!

The Project:

These 115-ft  suction manifold clarifiers were designed to treat a wet weather flow of 7.5 mgd. But, they routinely failed at much lower overflow rates.

Some of our Findings:

• The flow was unevenly distributed to the clarifiers.

  Solution:

  • Install rectangular flow measurement weirs in the effluent launders.

• The activated sludge process was plagued with M. Parvicella, a filament that creates massive amounts of scum and causes poor settling, with SVIs in the range of 200 g/L.

  Solution:

• Implement an aggressive, chemically oriented approach to eliminating the filament.

• The Crosby peripheral baffle was too steep (60°) and too long.; they actually encouraged solids carryover.

  Solution:

• Either remove and reinstall a better designed baffle or install a Crosby med-radius baffle. Installing the Crosby cylindrical baffle in this kind of a clarifier posed several design and operational problems but held the promise of overcoming a number of the design issues.

Is this the world’s biggest Crosby Cylindrical Baffle? (Well, maybe just the 2nd biggest)

Stay tuned to see performance data for the results!