Eugene/Springfield Water Pollution Control Facility 1984-1991

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''~ '.1 EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE The Equipment Maintenance section maintains equipment and performs work in specialized areas, such as electrical, instrumentation, metal work, machining, and scheduling of vehicle mainte- nanceforthe regional wastewater treatment plant, Residuals Management Facility, and Cannery Waste Management Facility. The section also handles maintenance and operation of the plant's 43 collection system lift stations. Maintenance staff also makes recommendations on new equip- ^ START-UP The Equipment Maintenance section faced many challenges preparing for and working through the plantstart-up. Maintenancepersonnelhad tolearn to maintain new equipment before and during start-up at the new plant while still taking care of equipment at the old plant. During start-up, sev- eralpieces ofequipment failed or required modifi- cation. Equipment that couldn't be repaired or modified had to be disassembled and returned to the manufacturer. To meet the increasing demands of the larger and more complex treatmentprocess, the maintenance section had to be restructured. In 1983, a new maintenance manager position was created to manage the maintenance program. The manager worked with the maintenance supervisor to meet equipment and operational maintenance needs. They created a team of maintenance technicians with each worker trained in a specialized area. They also developed a preventive maintenance program and a system for processing maintenance work orders more effectively. One of the most time consuming activities in preparing for plant start-up was testing all new equipment. Most of the testing involved calibrat- ing the instrument and electrical systems in the new facility to ensure the set points of the alarm switches, motor starters, variable speed control- lers, and programmable controllers were correct. ment purchases, installs new equipment, and cus- tom makes parts. These services provide signifi- cant cost savings. Much of the plant's equipment is critical to the wastewater treatment process and to the protec- tion of public health. Any failure of treatment process or lift station equipment could violate waste discharge limitations or result in high repair costs. Therefore, the section provides emergency services on a 24-hour basis. Another major activity was rebuilding and retro- fitting the two comminutors from the old Eugene plant and installing them in the new plant. Work- ers had to remove and replace the old mercury seals, completely disassemble all moving parts, inspect and replace parts before installing the comminutors into the new pretreatment headworks. Pump station maintenance activities includedpre- paring two new major pump stations and eight smaller pump stations. In addition to setting up the operation, workers needed to program the logic controllers for pump staging, alarm points, and other programmable control functions. By the time most of the new plant equipment was in operation, many equipment warranties were near their expiration date. Plant managers worked with engineeringcontractors andequipmentmanu- facturers to extend the warranties. These exten- sionseventually saved thousands ofdollarsbecause several major pieces of equipment required repair or modification soon after start-up. For example, when the pretreatment raw sewage screw lift pumps were wet tested, staff discovered the lower bearing lubrication system and the gear box oil lubricating system were not providing ad- equatelubrication. Staff redesigned the lowerbear- ing system and installed an oil cooling unit to