Eagle Christian Chruch - Commercial Project Case Study

Background

The Eagle Christian Church design team came to R.C. Worst & Co., Inc. with a problem. The congregation had out grown their current building. The church needed a larger sanctuary and additional areas to support their current rate of growth. A major problem arose when the subject of wastewater treatment and disposal was broached. Due to high nitrate readings in the area’s groundwater, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality required an additional study to determine the proposed expansion’s nitrogen impact at the site.

Design and Construction

The findings of the study revealed an interesting problem. To satisfy regulatory requirements, total nitrogen discharge would be limited to 20 mg/L or less, and the drainfield design would be such to cover the entire width of the property to insure complete mixing across the site’s groundwater migration path.

Conventional treatment and drainfield systems would not provide an acceptable solution to the nitrogen or drainfield coverage problems, and after much discussion, R.C. Worst & Co., Inc. proposed a solution that included Orenco Systems’ AdvanTex® treatment system coupled with Geoflow drip disposal technology. The treatment system was configured to deal with huge peak flows typical of a church facility while providing the envronment necessary to maximize biological nitrogen removal. The drip system allowed us to place the entire drainfield over a long, narrow strip of property while introducing the treated waste very shallow into the soil.

Operation

Once installed, and the necessary adjustments were made, the system appears to be operating without a hitch. Using Orenco’s TeleComm control panel technology, church staff and operation & maintenance provider receive alert and alarm condition via e-mail with the option to access the panel remotely from an available Internet connection.