TORRINGTON – The City of Torrington discharges 500,000 gallons of treated waste water back into the North Platte River every day, more than 15 million gallons per month. It seems like a lot of water for a small community, but it is about average for similar towns across America, since it is more than just households that create waste water. It is also a by-product schools, hospitals, colleges, restaurants, bars and car washes. All add to the thousands of gallons of water that need to be treated on a 24 hour a day basis.
However, according to Tom Troxel, supervisor for the city’s water/waste water utility, Torrington is looking to significantly reduce the amount of treated water released into the North Platte River.
“Our goal is to become a non-discharging system into the river,” Troxel explained. “Long-term, our goal is to not only be a non-discharging facility, but to use that water for fertilizing ag land.”
Currently, waste water is collected in the city’s sewer lines and flows to treatment facility. Once it reaches the facility, the effluent flows through grinders that pulverizes “indigestible solids” that are any materials not intended for the system, like plastics, hay, leaves or small branches.
After the grinder, the raw sewage passes through the lift station, which is a series of pumps that pumps the material into the first of four treatment ponds. The first three ponds aerate the material, with the water becoming increasingly cleaner as it passes through each pond. The final stage is the finishing pond before being discharged into the river.
Troxel explained that environmental regulations for pumping treated water back into live water sources, such as rivers and lakes, continues to get more restrictive, which increases the cost of water treatment. Currently, the city, with the assistance of a $1 million loan from the United States Department of Agriculture, is planning to make repairs and improvements to the “finishing pond,” which is the last pond in the system

before discharge.
“We are going to raise the pond two feet and repair the east and south sides that have eroded badly because of wind,” said Troxel. “Last year, the river rose to within two feet of breaching the finishing pond which would have contaminated the river. We’ve had flooding issues the last several years and we can’t really take the chance of the river flowing into the finishing ponds. We should get that project started by late spring.”
Besides repairs to the pond, Troxel also said the city is looking to replace the lift station, which is almost 30 years old.
“Our lift station wasn’t designed to remove indigestible solids and those solids are accumulating in the aeration ponds,” he explained. “So we have to pump the sludge out of them about every fine years at a cost of about $60,000.
“With a new lift station that provides screening and pretreatment of the effluent coming into the system, we can extend the life of the ponds and only have to pump them every 10 years.” He also said the new system would help alleviate some of the flooding the facility has experienced the last couple of years.
However, the cost of a new lift works, according to the latest estimate, is $5.5 million, and the city is turning to the USDA or from the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, or both.
“Regardless of whether we keep doing what we are doing or become a non-discharging facility, both the pond and lift station need to be repaired and updated,” said Troxel. “And due to the cost of a non-discharging facility, it may be several years before we can undertake that change. But even with our facility repaired and updated we may not be able to meet 2018 permitting requirements.”
To switch from a discharge to a non-discharge facility would require, according to city consultants, the acquisition of land, center pivots, and storage and irrigation facilities. The initial cost has been estimated to be between $6.6 million and $8.9 million.
But, permit requirements are not as stringent for land application as they are for discharge into live water sources, partly because the waste water is applied as fertilizer. Several cities in surrounding states are already land applying effluent to agricultural ground. Closer to home, Wheatland has already made the switch.
“It won’t be cheap to make the change,” Troxel said. “But in the long run it will be a much better option for the city, and the river.”