Story

This new facility, constructed while the old one continued operating, is a state-of-the-art pumping station. It replaced the existing station, which served the majority of Muskegon County. The project began with the field fabrication of steel pipe in the Northwest Kent shop, starting with pipe 48” in diameter. This 55 million-gallon-per-day pump station currently handles an average of 14 million gallons of raw sewage each day. Wastewater enters the lift station via a 72” gravity sewer and is pumped to the 48” discharge force main by six 600-horsepower immiscible centrifugal pumps. The pumps, costing $1.5 million (total), can each move 10,000 gallons per minute. With five pumps, the station has a firm capacity of 38,500 gallons per minute. The Odor Control System pulls contaminated air from the Headworks and wet well areas through a humidification chamber. The air then passes through the biofilter media bed. The treated air is collected and piped underground through a 24” FRP duct to a centrifugal blower, housed in the main facility, which maintains the negative pressure in the structures. The odor-free air is then discharged through the roof. Building the new station while keeping the old one operational led to several challenges. Northwest Kent had to sleeve walls with 2 – 4 foot thickness to the exact location for alignment of the interior piping. Compressed air lines needed to be installed to keep both facilities operational without interruption while making the change over from the old station to the new.