Fredonia Trustee Paul Wandel recently offered an update about wastewater treatment plant happenings.

Fredonia Trustee Paul Wandel gave a comprehensive report about the village wastewater treatment plant earlier this month.

“I’ve taken on the responsibility of working closely with the wastewater team and their plant, and their status. I’ve prepared a report, and I was there for a good part of the day today,” he said at the Board of Trustees meeting. He followed with a seven-point report:

— Wandel met with representatives of BECC electric company and Wendel Engineering. “The purpose was to discuss and formulate a plan and subsequently an engineering quote, to include the following: emergency backup power for digester valves and control panel, emergency backup for blower system and control panel. Currently these systems are only on grid power and not backed up by a generator. Even though the plant has a backup generator, there are some systems in the plant that are not backed up currently. If they fail, we’re in trouble.”

— Officials want plant operators to have remote access so they don’t have to be on-site to monitor it.

— Wandel discussed cybersecurity needs with plant officials.

— He was also part of discussions about a need for a total plantwide computerized monitoring system. “An action plan has been set in place. The initial team is the supervisor, the technician on staff, and myself.” The team must first Identify critical warnings and alarm functions for the plant, preliminary data needed for engineering quotes.

Wandel spoke of a “sophisticated, current-level-technology monitoring and control system for the plant that would alarm the operators and supervisors of any issues going on with the plant. And there are issues.”

— Wandel said a grant application for plant improvements that LaBella was supposed to handle “is dead.” He questioned why LaBella did not inform village officials, stating that the plant operator proactively asked about the grant’s status.

— Three digester effluent pumps are now working in automatic mode. They were recently fixed. However, there’s still an issue: a high duty cycle adds to wear on the valves. Wandel said an automated code will be modified to slow the cycle a bit.

— Wandel, Mayor Michael Ferguson, and plant officials are working on a list of items at the plant to take further action on. The list is ranked in terms of priority.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us but it’s only going to happen by working together… meeting regularly, identifying the needs, and then getting the additional preliminary work done so we can get our engineering community involved with quotes, and then seeking after grant funding,” Wandel concluded.