Weather Stations “Greatly Simplify” Wastewater Treatment Data Reporting & Plant Efficiency

 

Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District has an impressive track record. In addition to 12 Gold Peak Performance Awards from the NACWA, they won the 2018 Plant of the Year award from the Illinois Association of Water Pollution Control Operators. The awards recognize the plant’s commitment to safety, permit compliance, cleanliness and maintenance, and operations staff knowledge.

Among their efforts to improve plant efficiency and maintenance, the district purchased five Orion™ Weather Stations to monitor on-site conditions at the district’s two water treatment sites.

One of five Orion™ Weather Stations installed at the plants.
“In the past we would manually record and enter weather data,” Director of Operations Jake Callahan explained. “We first learned about Columbia Weather Systems in a featured article in one of the Operator magazines. This is where we originally learned about the equipment and its capability of interfacing with SCADA systems. We wanted to have weather data trended and monitored on the District’s SCADA system for information purposes to assist with data analysis and anticipating the impact a rain event would have on flows with real time data.” 

Jake continued, “The District’s service area covers two watersheds. We have two treatment plants that we own, operate, and maintain which are about 15 miles apart. Both treatment plants have weather stations installed in addition to two of our pump stations.

"With the Columbia Weather Systems (equipment), we were able to automate the weather data interface and data entry into our data management software. The data is used for reporting to the regulatory Agency as they now look for information on storm duration, intensity and total precipitation.

"Having the weather data fully integrated and trended on the District’s SCADA system has greatly simplified the reporting requirement aspect of managing weather data . . . Once the first weather station was configured the others were able to be integrated fairly easily.”

Learn more about how industrial weather stations improve water treatment operations at the links below:

Wastewater Treatment Application Page

TPO Article Featuring Columbia Weather Systems

Orion 420 Weather Station Information
 
Photos courtesy of Bloomington-Normal Reclamation District


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