Wolf Creek Stream Team
Volunteer Meeting March 13, 2004
Attendance:
Steve Krieg
Rachel Weiland-Burch
Rich Barksdale
Nancy Bain
Gus Kamphaus
Felicia Graham
Dave Reynolds
Jim Henderson
The first item of business was to organize into small groups, choose sites, and set monitoring
dates for April, May, and June. See enclosed attachment for dates scheduled for each group. I
also explained about a volunteer program through the Federal Agency NRCS (Natural Resources
Conservation Service) that provides liability coverage for volunteers while conducting activities
related to Stream Team. We only need to keep track of hours. Each volunteer has the official
calendar form. Just record your hours on pertinent dates and turn in at the end of each month.
For the eight people in attendance, be sure to include 3 hours for March 13th.
We then reviewed the slide show that was prepared last fall. It is meant to be used as an
outreach tool for various groups in the community: civic, youth, local government. The goal with
this slide show is for other Stream Team members to use it within their own ‘circles of influence’.
Discussion followed, regarding the Mission Statement, which summarizes who we are. The only
modification was to replace the phrase Wolf Creek with Wolf Creek Watershed. So here’s the
final version:
The Wolf Creek Stream Team is a group of citizen stewards bound together by our common
concern for the health of the Wolf Creek Watershed. We are committed to providing long-term
monitoring data and other learning experiences to the communities of the Wolf Creek Watershed.
We are working to raise public awareness of and involvement in water quality issues for
enhancement and protection of public health, recreation, and wildlife habitat.
Recall our vision statement that was developed during the strategic planning meeting last
September, and summarizes what we will accomplish:
To preserve, promote, and improve the natural integrity of the Wolf Creek Watershed.
Finally, two dates in April are worth noting: April 24th is the annual river cleanup sponsored by
Five Rivers Metroparks. We have traditionally helped with trash collection in the Wolf Creek
Communities west of Dayton. It is 9 am to 12 pm, and we meet at Adventure Central on James
McGee Boulevard. That same weekend, I’ll be setting up a Stream Team display board and our
Stream Table model at the Second Street Market. It’s part of an Earth Day slate of activities and
exhibits. Anyone who wants to stop by and talk to visitors about the Stream Team, it’s a great
opportunity for public outreach. The displays will be set up from Friday to Sunday. I’m probably
going to stop by for a little while after the river cleanup.
We met at 10:30 at the Brookville Waste Water Treatment Plant, and John Weist conducted the
tour under brisk but sunny skies. A synopsis of this small-scale municipal wastewater treatment
process follows.
Most of the movement of raw sewage is accomplished by gravity flow throughout the city (at
about 2 feet per second), although there are several pump stations in outlying areas. The
collection well at the plant is about 30 feet below the surface. Using a variable-speed pump to
regulate the flow, the sewage is pumped from the well up into the pre-treatment station. This
contains fine mesh screens that separate out all the debris that will not decompose. The
‘screenings’ are collected in a teacup shaped vat, and later disposed of in a landfill. The
remaining liquid sewage flows out into the aeration tanks, where microorganisms are mixed with
liquid sewage so that they can decompose it. Constant agitation adds oxygen to the mixture.
A device called a Parshall Flume regulates the flow from the pre-treatment station into the
aeration tanks. Flow needs to be regulated so the proper mixture (called ‘Mix liquor’) of
microorganisms to sewage is maintained.
The digested sewage and microorganisms flow into the clarifier tanks, where the microorganisms
settle out and are pumped back into the aeration tanks to digest new inputs of sewage. There
are about 10 species of microbes that are used in this process, and they periodically
overpopulate and certain amounts must be removed from the system. This is what constitutes
sludge, and there is a separate process for breaking those down. Digested sludge is applied to
crop fields
From the clarifier tanks, clear water is sent to a chamber containing banks of ultraviolet lights.
These deactivate any water-borne disease organisms, before the water is returned to the creek.
However this part of the process is unnecessary during the winter months, as the cold
temperatures eliminate such organisms. The UV light banks are an improvement over the
previous method of chlorinating the water, because there were adverse affects on the aquatic
ecosystem of the creek.
There have been many improvements in treatment technology since the Brookville plant was built
in 1950. Prior to that time, raw sewage was simply applied to large sand beds, and from there
leached directly into Wolf Creek. Today’s plant operates at a base flow of about 900,000 gallons
per day. However, volume increases occur periodically because of storm water leaking into old
sewage pipes and over the longer term from additional development of businesses and housing.
Anticipating these increases, the City of Brookville upgraded the plant in 1987 to increase the
peak processing capacity to 3 million gallons per day. Within the Wolf Creek watershed, the only
other locally operated wastewater treatment plant is in Englewood. The remaining municipalities
deliver their sewage to either the Montgomery County plants – one in West Carrollton, and one in
Kettering, or the city of Dayton plant on the City’s southwest side.
The members of the Wolf Creek Stream Team are grateful to John Weist and the City of
Brookville for increasing our understanding of this vital process that is so important to the health
of Wolf Creek. We learned about right-of-way issues regarding construction of new sewer lines.
It is the main reason why many sewer lines are installed in or near creek beds. As stream
channels experience natural or accelerated erosion (more storm water from nearby developed
areas), water pollution problems are exacerbated because storm water in creeks tends to enter
deteriorating sewer lines in the stream channel, and creates too much capacity for some waste
water treatment plants. Conversely, sewage can leak out during low flow.