Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast

What Happens After I Flush? Wastewater Management with Tyler Hammerle

• Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams • Season 2 • Episode 5

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In this episode of The Lake Doctor Podcast, we dive into a topic that often goes unnoticed—what happens after you flush the toilet? Tyler Hammerle, Project Manager at Wessler Engineering, breaks down the fascinating journey of wastewater, from your home to wastewater treatment facilities and beyond. With clarity and a touch of humor, Tyler explains how modern infrastructure protects both human health and the ecosystems we love, especially our lakes and streams.

Listeners will gain a new appreciation for the wastewater management systems working quietly beneath their feet—and the people who manage them. Learn how wastewater is treated, why septic systems matter, and how our everyday habits can either support or strain the health of local water bodies. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most important (and underappreciated) parts of modern human health practices and environmental stewardship.

Learn more about the Lilly Center's work at https://lakes.grace.edu/.

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Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on the Lake Doctor podcast. I'm Susie Light and my co-host, dr Nate Bosch, is an official lake nerd.

Speaker 2:

That's right, susie. I received my PhD from the University of Michigan in limnology, that's studying freshwater, lakes and streams. In today's episode, we're really excited to have Tyler Hammerly. He's a project manager at Wessler Engineering and we're going to talk about wastewater, aka what happens when you flush your toilet.

Speaker 1:

We are so excited about today's episode, you might even learn what a fatberg is the Lake Doctor podcast. Tyler, before we launch into the podcast and talk about our new set, would you tell me a bit about yourself?

Speaker 3:

please, yeah, so I work for a company called Wessler Engineering. We're a consulting firm in Indiana and Ohio, and so we got offices throughout those states and so we specialize in wet infrastructure. So we work in wastewater, stormwater and drinking water our expertise and so we help communities throughout I mean it's mostly municipalities throughout these states in solving their environmental issues, especially with water. I've been at the company for six years and been in the wastewater field for 10 years, and my company is celebrating 50 years this year.

Speaker 3:

And we actually work in the community. We've worked with Warsaw with their wastewater treatment expansion. We've worked with the KEDCO too and doing studies on their just the utilities with water and wastewater for understanding what are the capacity of these utilities like. How many more water can we pull out of the ground for different communities with the equipment we have? Or how much water can we treat in those wastewater treatment plants, and how can these communities in the county collaborate with each other?

Speaker 1:

So, tyler, your title, though, is project manager. What does a project manager do?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so a project, I oversee projects, I'm facilitating projects, and so really the life cycle of a project is kind of well. First you got to figure out where the money's coming from.

Speaker 1:

Right? Who's going to pay for it? Who's going?

Speaker 3:

to pay for it? Is it budgeted and like it's already in the books? Do they? You know these cities need to like issue a bond or their funding sources from the state or federal level.

Speaker 1:

So a specific project like a sewer project or a wastewater project would be that kind of thing. And who's going to pay for the study or who's going to pay for the treatment plant?

Speaker 3:

Usually the studies can be budgeted in. But yeah, those big design projects like a wastewater treatment plant expansion, a new lift station, usually cities don't just have money hanging around to pay for those, and so we go from study to a design. And so this is what the really cool part about my job as a project manager, environmental engineer, is I get to see what the work with the community figure out their environmental problem and how, with my expertise, hopefully, I can solve that and use my imagination, creativity and, with my skills, make something come essentially to life and put in the ground with concrete, rebar and pipes, pvc piping, you name it.

Speaker 2:

So from idea to reality, you get to carry through that whole project.

Speaker 3:

And so that's the design part and so that's why I got to be a professionally licensed environmental engineer and certified by the state, because I got to stamp those drawings, say this is going to work. And from there we take those like these drawing sets and these technical specifications that we have that are detailed, and we go out to contractors and say, hey, what's it going to cost to build this? And we oversee some construction administrative stuff as it's being built, as they have questions during construction.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's really cool.

Speaker 1:

That is cool and you're an engineer.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

But you specialized with environmental science, is that correct?

Speaker 3:

I got a degree in chemical engineering from Miami University, ohio. They did not have a civil or environmental engineering degree. That's where a lot of the people in my field come from, but I have a concentration in environmental and so, yeah, I took a 400 level engineering class my junior year of college where I got to design my own wastewater treatment plant, and I just felt, hey, this is. I was just like light bulbs went off and I was like, okay, I think this is something I could do with my gifts and talents to just make the world a little better place.

Speaker 1:

Heard about that project, so you designed a system to recover wastewater from a car wash.

Speaker 3:

Oh, no, no, no no.

Speaker 1:

No, okay, tell me more.

Speaker 3:

So that was my senior design project.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

So what's very unusual with senior design projects is usually they're all theoretical, like we come up with a theoretical problem. But one of the professors was at an auto body repair shop getting his car fixed and he saw that they washed their cars all the cars, after they you know them and they, um, he's just like hey, do you want, like some you know young engineers, I bet we could conserve some water. Uh, you know, divert your downspouts and uh, we could uh potentially treat it a little bit.

Speaker 3:

Uh, and then you could use that to wash the cars instead of just using city water and save you some money, um, so, and you know, free, it's free labor from the university, so he was the owner, was all for that, um, and that was such a cool project like getting to um, kind of calculate see how much water comes down. And we actually had a handyman come change the downspouts but he wasn't convinced that we should put the storage tanks in and he's like, is there really going to be that much water? Hundreds and hundreds of gallons, thousands of gallons, with a good rain coming from my roof, and then we flooded the basement.

Speaker 1:

So the tanks were in the basement and you flooded it?

Speaker 3:

Yes, and so he called the next day. It was like, hey, let's get those totes in and let's get this going. I believe you guys. Um, so it was, it was a great project and you talk about return on investment. He, he got reached out like three years later after we put that in and he said, yeah, with what they've saved in water bills from diverting those downspouts. Um, and with the collection system, there was also a little like septic kind of tank, we'll call it, where we had two elbows in there, so like stuff on the shingles wouldn't get it, and we were dosing like chlorine tablets in a pool because, you know, you'd have some bird poop too as well. Um, and uh, yeah, it worked, it's worked great hands-on education that's the best kind that is the best kind.

Speaker 1:

We know that from experience right nate a lot here at the lilly center for lakes and streams, with our environmental science program at grace for sure so we, um are at a new set this year for the second season of the Lake Doctor podcast, and I hear that there is a family connection between our set and you, so would you tell us a bit about that? Or, nate, do you want to jump in?

Speaker 2:

No, I'd love Tyler to tell us about it, and then I can jump in with other things.

Speaker 3:

Yes, so I guess behind us right we got the visual aquarium that's named after my brother-in-law, christopher Teets.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so their family has been really special to us here at the Lilly Center. They've given great advice over the years even some parenting advice from Tyler's in-laws, dick and Lisa, but also professional advice with advisors and boards and employees and partnering with other organizations and I've just really appreciated their advice over the years and fundraising investment, our native plants around the building here, some of our student scholarships and as well as helping us kind of in this space here too. So they've been a real instrumental family, and so now it's fun to hear some expertise on wastewater.

Speaker 1:

So, tyler, even though you got a family connection, that's not why we invited you here today. We want to hear about Wessler Engineering and especially how did that? How do you have a local connection with the Warsaw Water Treatment Plant?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so Warsaw is one of our clients and well, so we did a wastewater treatment plant expansion for them back, probably 2017 through 2019. I know it's rated for about six MGD, which MGD stands for million gallons per day. So if I use any acronyms, please ask me to clarify because there's lots in the industry.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, we expanded their wastewater treatment plant. I don't know where they're at on capacity. So a great future podcast would be having the superintendent on and kind of see where that is. But that means probably Warsaw is a growing community, right?

Speaker 1:

And so it does. What happens when water leaves somebody's house?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so well, you got to think of all the different places. They leave the house right. You got your toilets, you got your sinks, you got your showers, laundry right, just all these different areas that you just take for granted, really, of it going down the, you know, essentially, going down the toilet, the water, the contaminated water disappears. I don't know where it goes as long as it's not coming back up.

Speaker 1:

I'm not too concerned, right, you better know where it goes. That's your job, that's right, I do your job.

Speaker 3:

I do, and all those city employees who are in charge of taking care of that collection system need to know. And with that, so, like usually, you have a lateral that goes out of your house about six inches or so and it goes into a sewer main. So these sewers just get a little bigger and bigger as we make gravity do the work, and so we're trying to get it to go as far downstream as possible to be as energy efficient. Then we have a lift station, pump it to a higher elevation and then just keep going to the wastewater treatment plant, depending on where you're at in the system. So there's that, but there's also, I bet, these lake communities. Like it's, the topography doesn't work too well for those lake houses.

Speaker 1:

That's why there's a lot of lift stations being installed, yeah, so they have grinder pump stations typically.

Speaker 3:

So just imagine your disposal, like you know, your garbage disposal right below your sink to cut off. Just imagine that like it's. It's like a super shredder and it goes into, so it can go into these a lot like small pressurized two, or pipes, I should say, and we pressurize them and it just pushes that waste water downstream up up to an elevation where it can get into a gravity sewer or just all the way to the wastefarm treatment plant if needed. So I'm sure a lot of people around here have grinder pumps.

Speaker 1:

Another reason why you don't want to flush.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Wipes down the toilet, yeah. Because, it clogs up the grinder pump right.

Speaker 3:

It can. Yes, depending on your grinder pump. Somewhere they're designing technology and pump impellers and stuff. So because of this has been such a long issue.

Speaker 1:

So our listeners, if they are in the city limits proper, most likely they're connected to a wastewater plant. But we also have listeners who, like me, live on a piece of property that isn't serviced by a wastewater plant. I have a septic system, so what's the difference between the two?

Speaker 3:

There's some similarities. There's both treating wastewater, I should say, and with a septic tank. It's that big concrete tank that you got in your backyard, I assume right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, ours is actually in the front yard.

Speaker 3:

Oh, it's under your front yard.

Speaker 1:

Because the well's in the backyard.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, you want to make sure that those are separated by a good distance and so you got the septic tank and with that there's like baffles in there too. So anything that's floating on top, like if somehow grease gets in there, that's gonna float on top and then hopefully solids settle to the bottom right and then in the middle there is kind of the treated water that we want, because there's microorganisms breaking down those solids, that organic matter from your toilets, your sinks, you name it, and then it goes out to spread out through a field, through perforated pipes, so I don't know how it exactly gets out to your yard.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, it depends on what the septic is designed for, on different people's properties. For example, there's a pump in the septic tank which will pump it out into the drain field. Sometimes it's pressurized, sometimes it's just gravity, where the drain field will be downslope from the tank itself and just by gravity water will slowly trickle out of the septic tank and into the drain field. But you're right, then there's some sort of perforated pipes out there.

Speaker 1:

Water will slowly trickle out of the septic tank and into the drain field, but you're right, then there's some sort of perforated pipes out there that slowly let that water percolate slowly back into the groundwater that you have in the area and a water treatment plant both take in sewage, whether it comes from a kitchen, a washing machine, a toilet, and then the water is treated. Tell me about at a water treatment plant, what kind?

Speaker 3:

of treatments happen there. With a wastewater treatment plant there's a lot of multi-steps, so it's going to be a lot more involved than like a septic tank, and one of the reasons kind of alluding to with the septic and like you're going to see that in rural areas, right when there's less dense population, you could spread it out in a field, while once we, you know, have our more modern cities and a lot more denser population, centers like a wastewater treatment plant is going to make a lot more sense. Dilation centers like a wastewater treatment plant is going to make a lot more sense. And so the multi-stage process is you have the preliminary treatment primary, secondary, sometimes tertiary disinfection, and then there's like sludge treatment for the solids that you're getting rid of. Do you want me to go into like each of those?

Speaker 2:

I think you want me to start. Yeah, start with that preliminary step and just kind of take us through the process so the preliminary um treatment step is removing the large debris items.

Speaker 3:

So we have screening um so like bar screen of some sort, sometimes like a little as like quarter inch uh gaps in there. So we're trying to catch all the debris that might come into the sewer that people might flush down the toilet.

Speaker 2:

What's the weirdest thing you've heard of? Get caught in that initial step.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, I've heard a few weird things, but for the podcast, I've heard of a bowling ball getting all the way to the waist of our treatment plant. How did a bowling ball get into the sewers and just roll all the way down? I'm not sure. What's not even uncommon is finding money, like finding dollar bills, in there, and I've even heard of a story of somebody who was friends with one of the operators of the plant, took a bill, wrote a message to him and flushed it down the toilet. Oh gosh.

Speaker 2:

I can find better ways to waste money than that. I remember our local superintendent of our wastewater treatment plant here in Warsaw mentioned cause I take students there often on tours. He mentioned a two by four one time. I think got caught on that initial. Nothing surprises me. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay, so that's preliminary. Then we go into phase one or primary the other step though with screening is grit removal.

Speaker 3:

So cause you're going to get some like sand gravel that can cause a lot of wear and tear on pumps, and so to extend the life, we have a kind of grid system, and the most common is like a vortex grid system. So it's got like this paddle that goes around and pushes those particles, the grit, to the edge, and it just gets knocked down and then they waste that before it gets downstream, or it's going to settle somewhere downstream in the plant that we get to. So that's preliminary. So now primary treatment is. So not all plants have primary treatment depends probably mostly on your loadings at the plant, and when I mean loadings like the concentration of the pollutants in there.

Speaker 3:

So that is a like clarifiers typically. So we're talking they could be rectangular, they could be circular the most common I see is circular and so essentially, we're slowing down, the flow comes in. We're slowing down, the flow comes in. We're slowing down the flow so we can get more of those solids settling out, um, or the poo settling out, you know, lack of a better word and and then that's raked in and then, uh, collected and sent on and then like fats, oils and greases that could be in that waste water. There's a skimmers on top and so we skim it off the top and kind of waste it in a skim trough.

Speaker 1:

So wow, yeah so it isn't like you're just taking sewage in, dumping corax on it and pumping it out, right? No, it's more complicated than that oh, yes, yes, a bit more.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we haven't got to the most complicated part secondary, secondary treatment.

Speaker 2:

Okay, what's going on there?

Speaker 3:

So and this is probably what Dr Nate is most interested in is where the nutrient removal process happens is in secondary treatment. So we're looking at potentially a multi-stage, so we could have anaerobic tanks, anoxic tanks and aeration tanks. So what does those mean? It's just the conditions how much dissolved oxygen is in the water, and so if it's two milligrams per liter or more, it's an aerobic condition. If it's anoxic it's between zero and two, like maybe around one, and then anaerobic is where there's almost no dissolved oxygen in the water. So when you come so these tankages, they come in and we're trying to facilitate different things. So with the nutrient part of it is what I'll focus on is anaerobic um tanks. We are like there's all these microorganisms that are working and we will focus on these phosphorus accumulating organisms right now. So we are starving these phosphorus accumulating organisms and it's almost like a fermentation process happening in this anaerobic state without the oxygen and they are expelling their phosphorus, they're giving that up and they're taking up a bunch of volatile fatty acids.

Speaker 3:

And then, once we get to more anoxic aerobic state, is when we have what we call luxury uptake. And with that luxury uptake it's like the best visual for me is like imagine you're going to a buffet and your eyes look a lot bigger than your stomach.

Speaker 2:

Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.

Speaker 3:

yeah, and they just all that uptake, these organisms. They just accumulate as much as they can and as you are after a buffet, trying to walk out, you feel real heavy. All that uptake these organisms, they just accumulate as much as they can. And you know, as you are after a buffet trying to walk out, you feel real heavy and you're hopefully settling in the bottom for another clarifier that we call a secondary clarifier after this tankage. So that is how we can remove and we settle it out there and we waste that to a digester typically. But nitrogen though, how we remove, we look at nitrification and denitrification, because in the anaerobic tank we can have denitrification occur, right, and so that is reducing nitrates to nitrogen gas and then the nitrogen gas just goes into the atmosphere.

Speaker 2:

I love hearing you talk about these things because these are all the same processes that happen in nature, which is really cool. You're just concentrating them and trying to help them happen faster, to fix this water, to clean up this water much quicker than it would happen. So you mentioned two milligrams per liter dissolved oxygen. That's the same exact cutoff that we use for where fish can survive in our lakes. Above two milligrams per liter, they can get enough oxygen out of the water and survive. Less than two milligrams per liter is where they can't survive. And so our lakes have good fish habitat up near the surface in the summertime, but down near the bottom there's not enough oxygen. You talked about luxury uptake and we have the same thing happening in lakes because our phytoplankton, our algae that live in the lakes, one of the things they do is they can take up more phosphorus than they actually need, in part to help out, compete other algae around them, kind of if they get to the buffet before the others.

Speaker 1:

They're eating all the shrimp and the steak. Right, they're eating all the good stuff, right.

Speaker 2:

And then you also talked about denitrification, and that's another thing that can happen in our lakes, where we down in those sediments at the bottom of the lake where there's no oxygen, those anoxic, anaerobic conditions, that's where we can then get the nitrogen going to N2 gas dissolves in the water and then it can bubble out the surface of the lake and it goes to the atmosphere, where we have about 80% nitrogen gas in our atmosphere here around the earth and so, whereas phosphorus doesn't do that, so when phosphorus gets in our atmosphere here around the earth and so, whereas phosphorus doesn't do that, so when phosphorus gets in our lakes, it can sink to the bottom like those, those, uh, those microbes that are that are sort of fat from that luxury uptake.

Speaker 2:

Our algae still stay up in the water column, but the the idea is still there that it it gets retained in the lake phosphorus does, and then it keeps recycling year after year, whereas nitrogen we can actually get rid of that up into the atmosphere through denitrification. So I just loved all these. I couldn't be quiet because I loved hearing all these parallels from what we see in our local lakes too. So you've taken us through secondary Well, but what happens before denitrification?

Speaker 3:

How do I get? Because I usually have ammonia right, so I for nitrification, I have to oxidize that ammonia to get to that nitrate are you following all this?

Speaker 3:

it is complicated stuff yes, so um, and so we, because a lot of like or a lot of our wastewater treatment plants. They have ammonium limits. They've had them for quite a while now, but now they're reporting for total nitrogen and so now they have to think about denitrification. So usually they just had aeration tanks where in that aerobic conditions they can facilitate with those microbes, they can oxidize to the nitrates from ammonia and then a lot of the times you'll see an internal recycle which sometimes they'll call nitrate recycle, because that's what's specifically for and dump it into the process ahead of it so they can facilitate denitrification. But yeah, that's secondary process and and as that goes on we have you could potentially have tertiary treatment, and so this is really you're only going to see this if you're trying to get pretty strict limits.

Speaker 3:

Something we haven't talked about is total suspended solids, and so that's just like the sediment, the particles, measuring those that are in the water, right, and then there's sometimes phosphorus that'll be associated with that right. So if we're trying to get to really low limits that the permit might need for a wastewater treatment plant, we'd have like a tertiary treatment that could be like a sand filter to retain those solids, or a cloth media filter, probably the two most common. Now we're finally towards the end and it's disinfection time. So another thing we report, or that the plants report, is E coli, and so they want to make sure those we are killing as much of the bacteria as we can before it's discharged. And the two most common methods of disinfection are chlorine disinfection and you have like this chlorine contact tank where it'll just wrap around almost serpentine-like to have enough retention time for this chlorine to do its work or UV, ultraviolet light disinfection, and so shine that light. You put these bulbs in the water and you shine light to disinfect that ultraviolet light, to disinfect the water?

Speaker 1:

Is that a newer technology, the UV light, or has that been around a while?

Speaker 3:

It's been around a bit but you will see a lot of. I've done a lot of work with plants of converting from chlorine to UV disinfection.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, chlorine would be a similar process to what's done on the drinking water side as well, but that's just the opposite. They're adding chlorine then to the drinking water system to try to keep bacteria numbers down in the distribution system, right yeah?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so Dr Nate, how is wastewater treatment and stormwater treatment? How does that vary?

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, the short answer is stormwater treatment usually doesn't happen.

Speaker 2:

Usually we don't have treatment of stormwater, whereas wastewater we do have treatment through what Tyler was just describing.

Speaker 2:

So historically we used to have these sewer networks through our urban areas that would be combined where people's homes and businesses would go into the same drain pipes as what rainwater would come in through gutters and drains, out in streets and driveways and stuff.

Speaker 2:

What communities have done now is try to segment those apart from each other so that we have stormwater and wastewater in two different drainage systems going through the city. The reason for that is there's different pollutants and different things that need to be dealt with in one versus the other, and so what Tyler was just describing is set up really well for wastewater, which is going to be a fairly consistent flow of water through the year through different seasons. Stormwater, as the name would suggest, is going to be generated by storms, and so it's unpredictable, it's not consistent. It's large pipes that are set up for these large rain events or snowmelt events or something where water is going to be running off the land quickly, headed down slope towards what typically would be a river or a lake in our area, and usually those stormwater systems are not going to go through a treatment facility like what Tyler's describing, although there are some conveyance systems which will allow a little bit of of treatment as the water's headed out to a stream or lake.

Speaker 3:

so what you really touched on was the big thing was combined sewers right, and then there's some sanitary sewers and stormwater sewers. Um, so the combined sewers a lot like if you find a really old community they're probably going to have combined uh sewers. A lot like if you find a really old community they're probably going to have combined sewers. That was installed and it's very expensive to like go in there and try to put in new piping and you know, take everybody's laterals from their homes and dig up everything above, which is probably roads, and like it's very didn't dig up all everything above, which is probably roads, and like that's very expensive. And so with the combined sewer, like we just went through the whole process right Of a wastewater treatment plant. That's a lot of tankage.

Speaker 1:

So if you had to do that and treat all the stormwater flow like you're just building these massive tanks for these storms that only happen a few times every year, okay, so when I think about stormwater, though, I'm reminded of in the city of Warsaw, the streets collect a lot of grease and oil, and if that stormwater is not treated, does that mean the grease and oil is going into the creeks?

Speaker 2:

Typically.

Speaker 2:

I mean, there are some.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if your firm works with these at all, but there are some stormwater treatment things where, in the sort of what you know, if there's a grate there, that's a drain in the middle of a street that pulls in all of that stormwater, sometimes there can be a structure in there which can do some basic removal of either grit or some floatables and just almost like a version of a septic tank like we were talking about before, where the cleaner water that's kind of in the middle of the water column will come out and those other things will stay there and then they can be pumped out every so often.

Speaker 2:

But the vast majority of stormwater is going directly from the street to a lake or a stream untreated, and so anything that was on that street then is going to move as a pollutant to one of our lakes or streams, which means what we do on our yards and on our driveways and in the streets around our communities is really important for the quality of the downstream water. So we don't want to see oil and grease and grass clippings and leaves and those sort of things washing into our lakes and streams.

Speaker 1:

I'm glad you mentioned grass clippings.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Because that's really dangerous too to have on the road.

Speaker 2:

Well for traction, but also it can. I mean those things people often think of as hey, these grass clippings are natural, so what harm could that have? The problem is when you think of all of these people in an urban area, all with grass clippings. Those then get to a downstream river or lake, they decompose and what do they give off? Phosphorus Phosphorus, one of those nutrients that can then cause weeds and algae to grow in our lakes and, as we've talked about in other episodes, those can be big problems for our lakes.

Speaker 1:

I've been paying attention to what you're saying, dr. Good, good, good, you know. Uh, tyler, one of the things you mentioned, um, that a septic, that a water treatment plant, uh, treats are fats and grease. And I've heard an interesting term recently fatberg yeah, like an iceberg, but a fat. What is that?

Speaker 3:

so these fabrics? They can really wreak havoc on collection systems and what. What they are is essentially when people flush stuff down that isn't biodegradable. So this is your public service announcement to please not flush flushable wipes.

Speaker 2:

So, even though they say they're flushable, they're not really flushable, they're not.

Speaker 3:

Not flushable and so with that. So like I just I had a, I have a daughter that I just had born last year and she like got baby wipes, right, right. But there's been a lot of lawsuits and it's finally come to fruition that they're labeled. It's very clearly on there in multiple places and big bold lettering do not flush. And so with that. So you think of that, um, those wipes that aren't going to biodegrade, that are going down, and then you combine it with those fat, soils and greases, you just get these huge balls that start collecting and that can really clog your sewers and potentially build up raw sewage that will go up a manhole and you know you would have, you could have a, an overflow that berg.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, so neat. Remember tyler talked about that grid. Yeah, that captures the yeah the solids right.

Speaker 2:

Just think about a one wipe yes, covers over that portion and then everything backs up behind it if all the neighbors are flushing wipes, your grid gets pretty full quick. And we have a fatberg.

Speaker 1:

It could.

Speaker 3:

Now imagine if you lived in London where you don't have many grease traps on your restaurants and they have a huge problem there and they have a like. They start naming their fatbergs there and so they call them like Fatty McFatberg. They've even like, and one of the biggest was six feet tall and 800 feet long Like that's how big, massive, and they even like cut off a sliver of these and put it in a museum.

Speaker 3:

And it was actually a genius PR stunt, because a lot of one. The museum attendance went way up and it was a great way to raise awareness to what is happening.

Speaker 1:

So that you know. That really raises an interesting point. When we go to a restaurant, we are really fortunate that our restaurants here do have grease traps, and often you'll see those. Downtown there's an alleyway that has a grease collection point.

Speaker 3:

And hopefully they're maintaining them and it seems like they're maintaining them Good good, Dr Nate.

Speaker 1:

How does a functioning water treatment plant benefit our lakes and streams?

Speaker 2:

Well, as Tyler was just describing, these wastewater treatment plants are able to take that sanitary sewer water which has a lot of nutrients in it and a lot of sediments in it, and able to process that water rapidly, at high volumes, in order to lessen the amount of sediment or nutrient that then goes into the receiving body of water, which typically in Northern Indiana would be a stream. And so we're taking water that's high nutrient, high sediment, which if untreated would cause problems of excess weeds and algae growing in our lakes and streams, and instead removing those sediments and nutrients out of the water, so that the water then goes into the stream in a cleaner way than how it came into the plant. And so really, as the name would suggest, a wastewater treatment plant, they're treating that water and making it cleaner then.

Speaker 1:

You know that I'm a gun smoke fan, and recently there was an episode where they identified a disease that was because of the water a cholera outbreak, cholera type of one of those that was water-based and so really talk a bit about the public health benefit that we have because of water treatment plants.

Speaker 3:

Yes, so it's immense because if you think, like cholera, typhoid, I mean I don't, I'm not hearing that in the news too often anymore right, and that's because of proper sanitation. So with that and then with the like the outbreaks, like diarrhea and vomiting, like that could occur if you ingest bad like E coli bacteria, right, so how that affects your environment, I mean one people get healthier, they hopefully live, they're probably they're living longer, um, and hopefully their beaches are staying open, right and uh, and then theoretically they don't have to call off work because they're not getting so productive.

Speaker 3:

They're more productive.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean we talk public health, economic benefits, yeah waterborne disease used to be, in this country, a major contributor to decrease public health, whereas now, with wastewater treatment plants properly designed and functioning, we've cut out a lot of those waterborne disease issues in our country. And, um, that's being done in many other countries around the world. Uh, increased sanitation and better health, and so then it is. It's it's not only the health of those residents there, but it's also then helps the economy and economy and helps the sort of sense and quality of place that people have in their community that they're able to recreate in these water bodies and not be fearful of coming down with some sort of an ailment from that exposure to the water.

Speaker 1:

Dr Nate, what's the Lilly Center doing about E coli and other kinds of human threats that water might have?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the two most common human health threats that we have here in the Midwestern United States currently is E coli as well as toxins from blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, and we're really hitting both of those issues head-on with our applied research here at the Lilly Center. So in the area of E coli, we recently got certified by the Indiana State Department of Health to be able to analyze those samples in-house here at our research lab, which is just above where we're recording this podcast, and they're actually up there right now doing some E coli samples. And so with that certification we're able to not only analyze all of our samples from local lakes and streams with confidence from that certification, but we're also able to take in samples from other entities as another potential revenue stream for the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams to help sustain the work that we do here. That E coli data then helps us make decisions on where it's safe to go, where unsafe occurrences are of that E coli getting into the water, and then we can start to notice where those sources are and then fix those sources then in the future. And so it's good for sort of the detective work of understanding some of these nutrient sources so that we can minimize them in the future.

Speaker 2:

And then on the algae toxin side, that's a newer area of research globally that people are trying to figure out scientists around the world why do these blue-green algae, these cyanobacteria, produce toxins at some times but not produce toxins at other times? And we have that same thing happening here in Kosciuszko County in Indiana, where we have some lakes with very little blue-green algae population but relatively much algae toxin being produced by that small population, and then other lakes with large blue-green algae populations but yet very small amounts of toxin, very small concentrations of toxin. And so we're trying to figure out why does that exist? What are those patterns? How can we predict it? And then we can get to prevention so that we don't have that health threat in the future.

Speaker 1:

Tyler, you talked about the inflow to a water treatment plant. What happens like? What's the water quality when water leaves a water treatment plant, and what happens to the sludge?

Speaker 3:

What happens to the sludge? Okay, yes, I guess we'll tackle that first part of that question of what is it coming out right? So we have what the parameters we're measuring is BOD, which is biochemical oxygen demand, so how much oxygen that organic matter needs to take up, and that's measured milligrams per liter, the total suspended solids. They're reporting now for total nitrogen and they also test for ammonia and then total phosphorus as well. So a typical wastewater treatment plan for the BOD and TSS is around like the concentration of 10 milligrams per liter, where a lot of places aren't treating for total nitrogen. Their ammonia levels are really low, like one milligram or less. And then all plants have a total phosphorus that are one MGD or bigger, one million gallons per day or bigger. Rated plants have a one milligram per liter total phosphorus limit that they need to meet. So what do they Nate? What do they do Like? What's the concentration of those in the lakes?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so for example, on total phosphorus, since you just mentioned that our goal for our lakes here, based on some EPA guidelines, are to get to 0.01 milligrams per liter, and so we want to see in the lake a level of 0.01 milligrams per liter. So that doesn't necessarily need to be what the level of the stream coming into the lake is, because once in the lake we've got plants that will use and sort of filter out that. But we want to see that as low as possible and so typically in streams these levels are much higher than we would have in lakes because in the lake environment, the water slows down.

Speaker 2:

Uptake by the biology in the lake is possible, like weeds, algae, and so the levels typically come down. Oftentimes in communities that have wastewater treatment plants, if you were to take a sample in the river where the effluent water from the treatment plant is going, if you take a sample above where that treatment plant is discharging and then you measure the discharging water itself, the discharging water often is cleaner than the water in the receiving body, and so in those cases we know that wastewater treatment plant is doing really well and actually putting cleaner water in the environment than even is in the environment in the first place, and so that would be a really strong goal, even beyond some of the government regulations of the different levels that you had mentioned.

Speaker 3:

I think we need to understand kind of what the context of like Winona Lake, how much like I talked about Warsaw, like how it's 6 million gallons per day is like what it's rated for that could be on average coming out. I mean, how big is Winona Lake? By volume.

Speaker 2:

So Winona Lake has a volume of about 5 billion gallons of water.

Speaker 1:

Bigger than you thought huh. Yeah, that's crazy, yeah, that's a lot.

Speaker 3:

Here's a fun fact for you All the wastewater treatment plants in the us the epa says they approximately every day. They're treating 34 billion a year.

Speaker 2:

So wow every day every day, every day, yeah so about seven times the size of our closest lake to our studio here, being treated every day. Wow, and Winona Lake's 562 acres in size and about 80 feet deep at its deepest point. So that's a large volume of water that's being treated every day by our wastewater treatment plants.

Speaker 1:

A lot of flushing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which represents a lot of flushing.

Speaker 1:

Before that, you know, tyler. You mentioned something, though, that I think our listeners really need to know about. This is not just because a couple engineers said so right, this is highly regulated stuff.

Speaker 3:

Yes, and the big thing, this all kicks off by congressional level with the Clean Water Act back in 1972. So I mean, that's just a little over 50 years ago. And then they were setting up permit limits for point sources like a wastewater treatment plant. So they're called NPDS permits National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems, I believe is what they call it and so that's regulated here in Indiana by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, where they come up with some of these limits. So it's amazing, because we didn't have a phosphorus limit. I don't know when we got that here in Indiana, but not even 15 years ago. So it's just amazing how far we've come in those 50 years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and not just our wastewater treatment plants get these mpdes permits, it's also any major discharger that's discharging into um, our, our, uh, our sanitary system here. So we have industrial sources, we have commercial sources, where they have different limits that they need to have, even, yeah, if they're directly discharging into a stream or a lake, or if they're discharging into the wastewater treatment plant, then and so Okay, wait, let me make sure I understand this.

Speaker 1:

So if I own a factory and I'm discharging water into the Warsaw's water treatment plant, I have to have a special permit to do that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and I believe it's probably based on certain volumes or something like that.

Speaker 3:

Yep and different contaminants that that industry might produce, and that's usually all put in the city ordinance to regulate, and so for some industries, yes, they would have to have pretreatment upstream. But yeah, that's good to know For some industries.

Speaker 1:

Yes, they would have to have pretreatment upstream. That's good to know. We take for granted so much when we drain the sink, when we're washing dishes, or we flush the toilet or we turn on our washing machine.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's pretty amazing, and Tyler brought up a moment ago point source pollution. So it might be interesting for our listeners and viewers to understand the difference between point source pollution and non-point source pollution. So point source the easiest way to remember that is just you can point to it. There's usually an effluent pipe which is coming out and you can easily go there, take a sample and you can easily then regulate by permit what levels of certain contaminants can come out of that pipe legally.

Speaker 2:

What's much more difficult to regulate is non-point source pollution. This is pollution that's more diffuse over large areas. This could be people's yards, it could be golf courses, it could be agricultural fields, construction sites. These are areas that certainly need to have a good stewardship on them, where we're being careful what nutrients and sediments are washing off or even toxic chemicals for that matter but are a little harder to regulate, and so there haven't been many regulations towards those non-point sources, and so organizations like the Lilly Center, through our education efforts, are doing a lot more work now about non-point source pollution, because a lot of the point source pollution has been has been cleaned up with some of these regulations and these good designs of these facilities.

Speaker 3:

There's still more regulation probably to come and even stricter phosphorus limits, which I'm sure you'd be happy to hear. So you guys are down the road, being up for even even better designs than what you've already helped your clients with stricter limits yeah because, um, I think, as we kind of talked, as as we keep harping on with phosphorus, like it is the controlling um nutrient for those algae blooms, in our lakes and streams, and we want to keep them clean.

Speaker 2:

We want to enjoy them, and so yeah we need to keep them clean not just want to, we need to, we do yeah tyler, legacy is important to you.

Speaker 1:

It's important to your family. I know that. Um, how do you see the work that you're doing as legacy?

Speaker 3:

it's especially why I got into, because I'm a professionally licensed environmental engineer, and so what drew me to environmental engineering is just, I want to help people, I want to help communities, really just try to make the world a little better place with my just the gifts and talents that I've been given.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I have affinity for math and science, which, you know, that's not everybody's cup of tea, and I just saw, when I especially, as I alluded before, with that wastewater class, I was like this is how I can make a difference with my career. And I've done it. I've just done it in so many ways, not even with my career, but just how we volunteer because the family's really involved with the Nature Conservancy as well. And so my wife and I, we are nature preserve monitors, and so what that means is we go we're specifically big walnut nature preserve out, about an hour west of Indianapolis, and so we're hiking that once a month, once every two months and make you cleaning up any litter and making sure like clear, clearing branches after a storm and stuff are you taking that baby girl with you when you go?

Speaker 3:

yes, I am we actually one of our neighbors sold us the one of those like kind of hiking backpacks where you can strap her into the back oh, that's and um, yeah, she, she loves it. So, yeah, my wife, my wife and I we're big hikers. I mean, during the pandemic we went to all 24 state parks in the state, which is it's incredible to see this state and the diverse topography that we have.

Speaker 2:

really, so your daughter's the next generation of nature enthusiast, huh, yeah, cool.

Speaker 1:

And her baby wipes were not flushed down the toilet.

Speaker 3:

No, they were not but no more fatbergs and with talking about my daughter.

Speaker 3:

It's kind of almost added a new layer, right like you have, I think now that I became a parent last year it makes you think of things a little differently. And you just have, I think I bet a lot of parents can resonate with this. You have a deep desire that your kid has a better life than you do. Right, and just like, okay, well, I want you know, I want her to have a better life than I do. I want her to see cleaner lakes and streams and rivers. I hope with my gifts and talents I can do that in my field.

Speaker 2:

That's really cool. We call that stewardship.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much, Tyler. Thanks for being with us today and thanks for being a good steward and sharing your math and science capabilities with the world. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lake Doctor podcast. You can share your thoughts or submit questions by leaving comment or sending an email to lakes at graceedu.

Speaker 2:

Listening to this podcast is just the first step to making your lake cleaner and healthier. Visit lakesgraceedu for more information about our applied research and discover some tangible ways you can make a difference on your lake.

Speaker 1:

We'll see you next time. The doctor is in.