Riverside tops Wyoming in wastewater treatment

"Once we get done with (the biodome project) we will have the most updated and advanced sewer system in the state," mayor Leroy Stephenson said at the Riverside Town Council meeting last Thursday.

Ten biodomes, structures that help process solid waste and aerate wastewater lagoons, arrived from Utah Aug. 3 and another 10 arrived Aug. 16.

The addition of the biodomes to the aeration systems, ultrasonic system and ultraviolet light treatment system already in place makes for the most technologically advanced wastewater treatment system in the state according to Stephenson.

The biodomes themselves will allow for the wastewater lagoons in Riverside to remain active all year. Currently the ponds freeze during the winter and become dormant. This has made for a rough start for the wastewater treatment system in the spring.

Riverside looked at adding more wastewater lagoons in order to increase capacity before deciding on the biodomes. The town investigated buying the piece of property south of the existing wastewater lagoons. After finding that the appraised value of the property was more expensive than they thought, they decided to look at other options. The 20 biodomes cost about the same as buying another piece of property and will increase the processing capacity of the two existing ponds dramatically, according to Stephenson.

Plastic structures within the biodomes will grow a biofilm that digests the solid waste and helps the aeration system that is already in place by pretreating the waste as it enters the first lagoon and treating it again as the wastewater exits the second lagoon.

The biodomes are an American-made product from a company called Waste Water Compliance Systems, Inc. based out of Lehi, Utah.

The biodomes are now staged at the lagoons and Stephenson said Waste Water Compliance Systems would like to have them installed by the end of September.