Fecal Coliform Bacteria Issues at Wastewater Treatment Plant 1, Sept. 5

City of Coos Bay release, Sept. 4 – Last week, the wastewater treatment plant located at 680 Ivy Avenue experienced high fecal coliform bacteria counts in the effluent.  It was discovered that the cause of the high fecal counts was due to an operational error related to bringing process tanks back online in preparation for the winter months.  The City contracts out their operation maintenance of their wastewater system to a private contractor.  Once the water quality issue was discovered, the City’s contractor took immediate action and hauled seed sludge on Thursday and Friday (August 29-30, 2019) from the City of North Bend’s, the City of Coos Bay’s Plant 2, and Coquille‘s Wastewater Treatment Plants.  The seed sludge has microbiology in it that helps a plant treat wastewater.  The plant was monitored over the weekend and the fecal coliform results from Saturday and Sunday were within acceptable range.  Today the City learned that on Monday (September 2, 2019) Plant 1 had high fecal coliform counts.  It is suspected that the good fecal coliform counts that were observed over the weekend were attributed to the additional sludge that had been added the previous week.  But since the seed sludge could was not available over the weekend and the Labor Day holiday, the water quality decreased.  In response, the contract operators started hauling from the North Bend and Coquille plants today and it is anticipated that water quality will improve over the course of the week.  The City reported this issue to the Oregon Emergency Response System (OERS) and the Department of Environmental Quality.  Any questions can be directed to the City of Coos Bay Public Works Department at (541) 269-8918.