Three Years Operation of
Aerated Stabilization Basins for
Paperboard Mill Effluent
FRANKLYN D. HAYNES, Senior Project Chemist
Packaging Corporation of America
Rittman, Ohio
INTRODUCTION
The Packaging Corporation of America's Rittman, Ohio Mill has for three and a
half years operated mechanically aerated basins for secondary waste treatment.
The aeration basins follow primary gravity clarification to treat the effluent from
four paperboard cylinder machines with a rated production of 600 tons per day.
The secondary treatment plant, with a thruput of 3, 000, 000 gpd, reduced
BOD by 86 per cent, suspended solids by 65 per cent, based on the results of these
years operation. We have no odor problems and a post- aeration basin maintains a
minimum of 2. 0 mg/1 DO in the final discharge. Performance is satisfactory to
the State Water Pollution Control Board.
The plant has been in full scale operation since February 1965. Prior to that
date, we used 50 acres of unaerated lagoons for waste stabilization. The lagoons
were overloaded with BOD and were unsatisfactory due to hydrogen sulfide odor
during warm weather and low BOD reduction in cold weather.
During the eight years prior to start up of our present system, we went the
route with pilot trials of activated sludge, trickling filter, spray irrigation, bubble aerated lagoons, and lagoon recirculation. None of these methods were satisfactory for one or more reasons: cost, inadequate BOD reduction, sensitivity to
shock loads, or too much land requirement.
In 1959, we engaged a consulting engineer to survey our waste treatment
problems and recommend a solution. After extensive laboratory evaluations of
our waste water, a pilot trial was set up using a 174, 000 gal earthen basin with a
7.5 hp aerator.
The satisfactory results of this trial led to the constmction of a prototype
3,000,000 gal capacity aeration basin able to handle 15 per cent of our total
waste flow, about 750, 000 gpd at that time. This basin was equipped with two
30 hp surface aerators. BOD reduction through the basin varied from 80 to 92 per
cent for three to six days detention under summer conditions.
Based on the data developed during the four and a half months operation of
the system, we proceeded with the construction of the full scale plant. Construction cost was $225, 000, not including land. Time for construction was about
one year. The planning and construction was done by plant engineering and
maintenance forces. A local contractor bulldozed the earthen basins from one of
the existing lagoons.
361 -