Operation of a Central Waste
Treatment System
Bayport Industrial Complex
JOHN D. BRUTON, JR., Operations Superintendent
Friendswood Development Company
Houston, Texas
INTRODUCTION
BAYPORT is a rapidly growing industrial development located approximately
23 miles southeast of downtown Houston, Texas. It is the home of internationally
known industries which have been attracted to the area by an abundance of raw feed
stocks, markets, and supporting services including power, rail, roads and water
transportation; as well as advantages of a total area development plan. A vital factor
in that plan is the BAYPORT Central Waste Treatment System which is provided by
the developer as a service function toward the preservation of a desireable
environment and conservation of natural waterways of the area. The Central Waste
System presently serves ten plants, of heavy industrial class, with collection,
treatment and disposal of liquid wastes. Biological treatment facilities are comprised
of two plants with a combined capacity of 3.75 mgd or a BOD load capacity of
approximately 12,000 lb/day. When BAYPORT is fully developed, the system will
handle about 50 mgd of which about 20 per cent will require biological treatment.
The developer of BAYPORT is Friendswood Development Company, a wholly
owned subsidiary of Humble Oil & Refining Company. BAYPORT covers an area of
some 12,000 acres and to date some 22 firms have purchased more than 3,000 acres
of land.
STREAM SEGREGATION
Objective of the BAYPORT Central Waste System is to provide for economical
collection, treatment and disposal of liquid wastes (1), all within appropriate
guidelines of the state regulatory agency. The first step toward achieving this
objective is in-plant conservation and segregation of wastes before disposal into the
central system. This procedure is required of each plant and consists of separating
surface drainage from waste streams or from drainage that has become contaminated
by waste. Contaminated drainage, along with normally produced wastewaters, is
pumped from each plant site into the central system.
COLLECTION SYSTEM
The central collector is a gravity system which consists of two concrete lined
channels extending through the central part of BAYPORT, an approximate distance
of two and one-half miles. Each plant must deliver its waste into the collection
channels at which point its responsibility ceases, providing certain criteria are met.
-168-