The Utilities Committee met 06/12/2023. One of the items they received an update on was the wastewater treatment plant Polymer Incident of 12/26/2022.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
During that incident 4-5 months’ worth of treatment chemicals were dumped into the wastewater treatment plant’s system which stopped their digesters and the hauled waste program. Normal operations at the wastewater treatment plant were restored by 01/23/2023, but the utility did experience around $130,000 in lost revenue as well as around $55,000 worth of property damage. Utilities Director Chris Shaw reported to the committee that they put in an insurance claim for the property damage, which had been approved.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) noted that a third-party investigation was being conducted and asked if any reports would be provided to the committee.
Director Shaw did not directly answer that question, but did say that a number of issues/recommendations had been made regarding signage, plant safety, and communication at the gate. He highlighted as one problem the fact that the gate operator only had 20 seconds to communicate with a person at the gate, and once that call ended the gate operator could not call the gate back. They needed a more robust security system that allowed them to communicate internally at the facility after hours not just from 7AM to 3PM during business hours. “That should be corrected. If we’re receiving 10,000 vehicles per year, we’re collecting $2.5 million, and we don’t have any staff or resources to be able to do what a Ring doorbell can do at a private residence.”
He also said that the signage was not sufficient. “Even though this is a hauled waste station, there wasn’t signage at that. There’s signage at all the chemical offloading stations and operational procedures and everything for all the chemical offloading, but there wasn’t anything for our stations, even though they’re containment, they’re barricaded, and all of that kind of thing.”
Alderperson Doran asked again if those reports would be presented to the committee in the future or not.
City Attorney Amanda Abshire responded, “I don’t know that there’s a formal document that would that was intended to be provided.” She also mentioned that because of the insurance claim, third-party subrogation and/or litigation might be something that could happen. [I took that as reasoning for why a report should not be made public.]
Director Shaw also spoke positively about the city’s hauled waste program. Appleton’s treatment facility has utilized its excess capacity to an extent that most other facilities do not, and since 2014, the program has increased by 150%. This has benefited Appleton ratepayers because the utility is bringing in a lot more revenue, to the point that Appleton ratepayers only have to cover 40% of the utility’s expenses while the rest is covered by the hauled waste program and commercial users.
He did note that, although the program was suspended for nearly a month after this incident happened, they would eventually have to stop it for 6 months anyways to perform maintenance. [It wasn’t clear to me if the maintenance was routine that would be needed even if this Polymer Incident had not happened, or if that needed maintenance was a direct result of the incident.]
[Additionally, I don’t understand why a report on this incident, one that clearly lays out what happened, should not be made public. Based on this conversation, it sounds like a worker at the wastewater treatment plant just buzzed some dude into the facility and left him free to drive around with no directions and pump a bunch of chemicals into an unmarked tank, actions which resulted in $130,000 in lost revenue which impacts Appleton utility ratepayers. Hopefully that’s not what happened, but I don’t know how else to interpret what was said at this meeting.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1107708&GUID=52C4A51F-42AE-422A-82E3-DE903B9F4A74
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