Environmental Services

The City of Alabaster’s Environmental Services is divided into two operational units, Environmental Collections and the Wastewater Treatment Plant. Collections personnel are responsible for a network of sewer lines consisting of main and secondary lines and pump stations. Alabaster has approximately 100 miles of main line and 100-200 miles of secondary lines where most are spread out through subdivisions. The customer’s lines are connected from house or business lines to these secondary lines.

Pump stations are used due to the topography of the land in and around Alabaster. Pump stations pump the wastewater to the treatment plant when gravity cannot naturally accomplish the flow. A point of interest: the City of Alabaster has a gravity sewer line which flows from Shelby County Airport to the treatment plant. There are presently 48 pump stations, which consist of two pumps per station. Wasterwater flows through a pump at 100-350 gallons per minute with elevation changes ranging from 10 to 197 feet.

As new subdivisions are developed and current subdivisions continue to grow, new pump stations will be constructed and/or upgraded.

Environmental Collections personnel performs cleaning of the main sewer lines, and maintenance of pumps and pump stations, and taking video images of the main sewer which are used to ensure proper installations of lines in new subdivisions as well as a video record of sewer laterals.

The Treatment Plant is a facility which has a capacity of treating 7.6 million gallons of wastewater per day that purifies/cleans the sewage to an acceptable standard that is mandated by the state. It  then discharges effluent (treated wastewater) back into the natural water flow. Sewage enters the treatment plant through Pump Station #1 which has three submersible pumps, each having the capacity of 3,250 gallons per minute. Sewage goes through a preliminary grit remover unit that removes any grit, sand or gravel which might have entered the lines during construction. After grit removal, sewage enters the rotomat which removes any solid waste material that is not boidegradable. Next, it enters Pump Station #2 where flow is proportionally split to aeration zones where oxygen is added to stabilize the biological reaction. This reaction is where bugs that are only seen through the microscope breakdown of the solid waste. Next is the clarification unit where a settling process removes solid wastes/sludge.

After clarification, the wastewater goes through sand filters that filter any microscopic solids that are left. Last, it goes through an ultraviolet disinfecting system that kills any pathogens that remain followed by a cascade which increases dissolved oxygen before the final product is discharged back into the natural water flow.

FUTURE PLANS

The byproduct from the plant is solid waste/sludge. This byproduct enters a sludge press where a polymer is added that assists in the separation of the sewer waste/sludge and excess wastewater. The sludge is pressed to a dry state and is landfilled. The excess water from the sludge press enters at the preliminary unit of the treatment plant where the process starts over again.

Along with the plant expansion, we have also built a state of the art laboratory which now gives us the capability of performing all state required lab tests and quality control testing, negating the need to outsource to commercial companies.