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DelGrosso Foods is planning to redirect the sewer effluent discharged from its new white sauce plant in Pinecroft to Tyrone Borough's treatment plant, because the Logan Township plant can't handle the load.
The changeover should occur by October, said Dave Pozgar, director of the Logan Township Sewer Department, citing a DelGrosso official.
The Logan plant is a residential facility, with no other major industrial customers, while the Tyrone plant is an industrial facility, with numerous industrial customers -- including DelGrosso Food operations at the company's main campus in Tipton, said DelGrosso spokeswoman Amy Mearkle.
DelGrosso started operations at the white sauce plant in March, after completing renovations on what was the Cenveo commercial envelope factory, which sent its sewer effluent to the Logan plant, according to Pozgar.
That wasn't a problem, given that the flow was mainly from restrooms, Pozgar said.
Logan officials realized that the flow from the new sauce plant would be an issue only after the plant started operations, and workers "lost" or wasted a few batches during their initial efforts, according to Pozgar.
"That's when we found out (that) whoa, we're going to have a problem," he said.
There were two "overflows" that placed the Logan plant "in a dire situation" with the state Department of Environmental Protection, said Antis Township Supervisor Dave Worthing at a meeting last week during which supervisors agreed to amend the township's Act 537 sewer plan to accommodate the switch to Tyrone.
The "loadings" from the sauce plant turned out to be larger than expected, said Susan Bonsell, administrator for the Northern Blair Regional Sewer Authority, whose collection lines convey the plant's effluent to Logan -- and whose lines will ultimately convey the plant's effluent to Tyrone.
"No one really asked us if it would be OK," Pozgar said when asked about the initial expectation.
The volume from the sauce plant has caused a noticeable increase at Logan, but the contents of the effluent are the real problem, according to Pozgar.
That effluent has caused higher than normal levels of acidity, lower than normal dissolved oxygen and high biological oxygen demand at the Logan plant, Pozgar said.
To mitigate the problem for now, DelGrosso has installed a temporary, portable, trailer-based pretreatment facility at the sauce plant, according to Bonsell and Mearkle.
That pretreatment helps, but only with the acidity issue, according to Pozgar.
Still, the situation is stable, as long as the plant doesn't waste a batch into the collection system, he said.
Reportedly, if a batch needs to be wasted for now, the company collects it in a truck and transports it somewhere for disposal, Pozgar said.
DelGrosso is working to get permits for a temporary line to connect the sauce plant to a manhole behind the nearby E.R. Carpenter facility, where there are Northern Blair lines that go to Tyrone, according to Mearkle.
That temporary line will serve for six to 12 months, until workers can install a permanent line to that manhole, according to Mearkle.
The permanent line is still in design, so the company isn't sure of its size or cost, Mearkle said.
The connection behind E.R. Carpenter is a couple hundred feet from the sauce plant, an official estimated.
Tyrone seems willing to accept its prospective new customer.
"We want to do anything we can to expedite this thing," said Borough Manager Ardean Latchford. "And not hold DelGrosso's up."
Antis was eager to cooperate in the "high-value" switch, Worthing said.
Everything is going well now, and there's good communication, Pozgar said.