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EAGLE MOUNTAIN -- You can golf, hike, or even ride horses in Eagle Mountain, but taking a tour of the waste water facility is something you won't find in any tourism brochures. However, it's exactly what workers with Utah's Division of Water Quality wanted to do Wednesday morning.
"It's certainly an improvement over what they had before," said Walt Baker, the director of Utah's Division of Water Quality. "The previous facility had problems. The ability to maintain that system was beyond acceptable."
This new facility, though, is one Baker says Eagle Mountain can be proud of. He was excited for the tour because of a new piece of equipment that is the only one of its kind in Utah."It's a big deal to us," said Chris Trusty, Eagle Mountain's Public Works director. "Now we have this kind of a new technology that really can be an example and give some ideas for other people in the state."
The new piece of equipment is called a Cannibal Solids Reduction System.
"What the Cannibal System does, is it does a biological sludge reduction, which means the bacteria that's in the system eats itself until it reduces," said Trusty. "It saves the city money because we don't have to dispose of that. We don't have to haul it off to another city, and [we] save dumping fees."
Doing it this way also lessens the stench.
The facility did cost close to $10 million, but city leaders say they wanted to look long-term.
"In the long-term, we will definitely save a lot of money," said Eagle Mountain's Mayor Heather Jackson. "The cost of sludge removal is extremely expensive. You either have to truck it somewhere else or you have to come up with your own composting, which means then you would have a bad stench from it."
"The return on investment from this system comes within five years," said Trusty.
This Cannibal System won't work for all communities. It doesn't separate phosphorus, but since Eagle Mountain's waste water doesn't discharge into any surface water, it's perfect for the city. Other communities do discharge into surface water.
State regulations require phosphorus to be separated into any waste water discharged into a surface water receiving stream.
Eagle Mountain started planning for this system five years ago.
E-mail: acabrero@ksl.com
