Reports that the Western US has entered a megadrought caught my attention. Some say it’s the worst in 1,200 years. How timely that political leaders in Washington are now debating an infrastructure initiative including water and wastewater. I couldn’t help but correlate this news with anthropologist’s conclusions that the last

Imagine for a moment that you are a heterotrophic bacterium and you have the good fortune to be floating amidst municipal sewage in a wastewater treatment plant. You have a steady supply of food, someone is blowing fresh air through your water and also is looking after your needs on things like pH and nutrients. For the next twelve hours or so,

Vice President of Engineering, Jeff Danner, discusses how Entex’s work on even the most rural wastewater facilities carries out the Water Environment Federation’s mission of protecting public health and the environment.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, I have been noticing reports of the detection of the novel corona virus in wastewater and the potential utility in monitoring it as public health tool. The U.S. CDC has been following these results as well and has published official guidance on wastewater surveillance testing.

On June 9th Entex was issued a patent for our WavTexTM fixed-film secondary treatment system and innovative EnTextileTM growth media, System and Method for Biologically Treating Wastewater Using Low Density, High Surface Area Substrates.

A chemical plant in the gulf coast faced several challenges in their wastewater plant. They routinely experienced high-strength influent with TKNs as high as 450 mg/L and CODs of over 5,000 mg/L.

When friends or family ask me how a wastewater treatment plant works, I often start by telling them that the process is fundamentally the same as what happens in any pond, river, lake, or stream. The bacteria eat the waste while using up oxygen and they do it faster if it is warmer. Given that we know that the most important parameters in treating the

Entex recently received purchase orders for two lagoon upgrades, one in West Virginia and one in Louisiana. Despite their similarities in flow, size, and effluent requirements, the best process solutions for the two lagoons are not the same due to differences in climate and topography.

While everyone’s focus at the moment is targeted at limiting the spread of the corona virus to save lives and to avoid overwhelming our health care system, in the months and years to come we will need to rebuild the economy and deal with unemployment. I am an engineer not an economist, but it certainly seems like economic crises are happening more frequently and are more severe as time passes.

Here in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, clean and consistent water supplies are critical to our collective health. One of the most important ways that we can protect ourselves and others is washing our hands. So, the next time we turn on the tap to wash our hands, I suggest we all consider the employees at our local water and sewer system.

We are seeing increasing signs of water scarcity, even here in the eastern part of the US. Yes, water is a renewable resource, but we can help Mother Nature. And Entex is doing its part.

The vast majority of aerated lagoons employ floating mechanical aerators to supply mixing and dissolved oxygen. While these aerators do have the advantage of relatively low upfront capital, the cost of the electricity to run them can be quite high. In addition,

A chicken processing plant’s wastewater treatment lagoon during and after the installation of six floating WavTex modules is shown in the photos. The existing floating aerators did not provide enough mixing or

While the construction of wastewater facilities that treat tens of millions of gallons a day attract a lot of attention, the vast majority of wastewater plants are much smaller and serve small communities, housing developments, industrial facilities, resorts, etc. At first glance,

The Southeast Treatment plant in Greater Ouachita, LA (0.45 MGD) has three lagoons in series, two partial mix and one facultative. The floating surface aerators in the first two lagoons were not able to maintain adequate DO for treatment and low mixing energy allowed for significant sludge accumulation.

Snohomish WWTP is a 1.2 MGD plant consisting of four aerated lagoon cells located approximately 30 miles north of Seattle where heavy rainfall events are common. As a result, maximum month daily flows can peak at up to 7.9 MGD, decreasing biological treatment and in extreme cases, causing the slow growing nitrifiers to wash out.

Last week I attended my first WEFTEC at McCormick Place in Chicago. It was fascinating to attend this event as a young project engineer. With so much to see and experience, WEFTEC gave me

As the fall approaches in North Carolina, there are two certainties. The Blue Ridge Parkway will be packed with RV’ers following the changing colors of the leaves and nitrification rates in our wastewater treatment plants will start to slow down. As water temperatures drop below 10 ◦C, the metabolisms of the microorganism responsible for nitrification begin to slow down and

The past few weeks, I have been seeing more and more about blue-green algal blooms. I’d find numerous online posts of devastated dog owners having to say goodbye to their furry friends after spending a day playing fetch in a lake or river. I couldn’t help but ask myself: What’s causing this? Why am I hearing about this so suddenly? And why are dogs the ones falling victim to these harmful algae blooms?

Jeff Danner is Entex’s Vice President of Engineering.  Jeff leads Entex’s technical staff including process design, engineering, project execution, and R&D. 

Last week I had the chance to attend the Water Environment Federation 2019 Symposium on Nutrient Removal and Recovery Symposium in Minneapolis, MN. It is always refreshing to get away from the daily rhythm of engineering calculations and project execution to step back and

Entex is pleased to welcome Lauren Takitch to the team. Lauren began with Entex in January of 2019 as a Project Engineer. In this role, she is responsible for process design and simulation as well as project execution and start-up.

A new housing development in Powder House Pass, SD needed a new 25,000 gpd treatment plant to meet an effluent requirement of <1.0 mg/L NH3-N.

Sometimes out of tragedy good things arise. This week in 1969 the Cuyahoga river caught on fire. No one knows for certain, but many believe the sparks from a rail car crossing the river was enough to ignite the oil and gas that covered the river. It happened periodically in the years prior to the 1969 river fire, but increasing awareness of damage being done to our environment created a sensitivity that helped trigger positive change.

The 100,000 gpd aeration basin in St. Clements Shores, MD was upgraded with a cycling oxic/anoxic IFAS Webitat system after struggling for years with their TN limit of 13 mg/L in the cold winter months. Four Webitat modules with BioWeb fixed media and cyclic oxic/anoxic operating modes were installed in the aeration basin in November

The wastewater treatment lagoons in Rockford, OH were upgraded using Entex’s SFF Webitat system in order to meet its new permit limits of <13 mg/L of Ammonia in the winter (4 ◦C) and <5 mg/L in the summer. Seven Webitat modules with BioWeb fixed media were installed in the lagoons in March 2019. The modules

Lexi interned for Entex starting in January of 2017 and returned as a full-time employee in January of 2018. She holds a B.S in Environmental Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she dedicated her undergraduate research and course work water quality and public health. Lexi’s first experience in water quality

It’s a question recently posed by Daniel Van Abs, water policy professor at Rutgers University, and one that should be answered soon, in his opinion. Van Abs wrote an editorial about the issue, which was recently published in the NJ Spotlight, drawing from his research and his experience with water policy in New Jersey state

You’ve probably heard of miners using canaries as a safety precaution when they are deep in the mines, but have you heard of using mallards for wastewater treatment safety? Maybe not. There is currently a water reclamation project in Utah that is discharging 1.5 million gallons per day into the Great Salt Lake. The pipeline

No need to rush out to California for gold this time. It could be hiding in your neighborhood municipal wastewater treatment plant. But not the traditional yellow lustrous variety. We’re talking about oil – black gold. A recent study done by Rice University identified municipal wastewater as a habitat in which oil-rich algae could exist

The connection between drinking water sanitation and health has been known for thousands of years. The problem was that thousands of years ago, we didn’t understand the underlying science behind the causation between unsanitary drinking water and illness. Here are some key dates and discoveries that led up to our current drinking water treatment and

They wreak havoc on wastewater treatment plants. From clogging pipes to breaking down equipment, non-woven fabrics cause all sorts of problems for plant operations. Popularly known as wipes, and commonly flushed down toilets, these non-flushable items are often a source of plant overflow. What can be done to solve this issue? That’s a question that

Last month, the Entex sales team was in Wichita, KS for the Kansas Rural Water Association Conference. The show was geared toward operators in the area, which allowed our sales team to receive direct feedback on challenges they are facing at their plants. The dialogue was focused around solutions to reach stricter permit limits and