Village Services | Pubic Works Department

Waste Water Reclamation

Everything which comes into the plant comes from the land and the sea, and everything will return to the land or the sea. A very small amount will be removed from the environment and sent to a landfill.

The Village Waste Water facilities are a 24 hour per day 7 day per week operation. When a sewer line, a pump station, or a treatment plant go into service, it is essential to the public health and safety that the systems continue to function without interruption.

The Romans and other ancient civilizations were aware of the need to handle and dispose of sewage. It is critical to any advanced society that lives in large communities. During the Middle Ages this knowledge was lost and it wasn't until the invention of the microscope and our understanding of bacteria and their role in disease that emphasis was again placed on good sewage disposal.

Our departmental mission statement:
The mission of this department is to collect and provide proper treatment of the Village wastewater for the lowest pratcial costs to the residents in a prudent, reasonable and responsible manner.

We have 10 full time employees who are supplemented with part time seasonal help to operate and maintain the Village Waste Water Systems. We do not staff the 3 facilities or 11 lift stations 24 hours per day, but instead rely on a great deal of automation to monitor the equipment.

The staff is required to have state operations licenses and all of our personal is licensed either for waste water treatment or collection system operation and maintenance.

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 established a far reaching set of national programs to address water pollution. Our three treatment plants address the national agenda to protect the nations waterways.

Each plant has a state permit regulating its use. We are given standards for our effluent and we are permitted to handle a specific amount of flow at each facility. The State is of course very protective of the water ways and if we fail to meet any of the standards they set, we are eligible for fines and imprisonment.

We also have a State and Federal permit for sludge disposal that sets specific regulations on how our sludge is to be made safe prior to disposal and specific regulations on how this sludge is disposed. All of our sludge is applied to farm fields where it is used as a crop nutrient to grow corn.

We have broken our activities into four main areas: the three Treatment Plants and the collection system that transports the sewage from homes and businesses to the plant.