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Guide to Help WWTPs Get It Right on Staffing
By Stephen Hochbrunn, NEIWPCC
Nobody can deny that a modern wastewater treatment plant is a marvel of applied science and technology. But good operators are still needed to ensure a plant is run safely, efficiently, effectively. Ideally, a plant has the exact amount of operators it needs—no less and no more. Such a plant is deemed to be “properly staffed.” Achieving this is no small challenge.
To assist municipalities and wastewater facilities in determining the number of operators needed to perform a plant’s tasks, NEIWPCC has published The Northeast Guide for Estimating Staffing at Publicly and Privately Owned Wastewater Treatment Plants. While the content of the guide is entirely new, the idea behind it is not. Credit for that must go to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which in 1973 published the widely referenced guide entitled Estimated Staffing for Municipal Wastewater Treatment Facilities. For many years, state regulatory agencies and plant managers relied on the 1973 guide to determine the staffing needs associated with treatment plant processes and activities. But changes in the wastewater industry seriously diminished its usefulness. The new guide provides the updated information needed to reduce inadequate staffing, which has been identified by EPA as one of the top reasons for the inability of some plants to meet permit requirements.
NEIWPCC developed the guide with the assistance of an advisory committee of regional 104(g) members (technical assistance regulators from the Northeast), state regulators, wastewater treatment plant managers and superintendents, staff from contract operations firms, and local wastewater experts with experience in staffing treatment plants. With input from the committee, NEIWPCC developed the centerpiece of the guide—a series of charts that enable a user to calculate the number of staff hours required each year to complete a wide variety of plant tasks, from maintaining aerated grit chambers to removing snow in winter. To get feedback on the accuracy of the chart estimates, the project’s manager, NEIWPCC’s John Murphy, and technical consultant, Thomas Bienkiewicz of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, conducted a pilot study in which they visited 25 plants in New England. At each stop, the managers and operators of the facility provided comments used to fine-tune the charts and improve their ability to yield accurate results. In addition to the charts, the guide includes sections on issues that have an impact on staffing levels which is significant but difficult to quantify, such as the age of a plant’s workforce.
Printed copies of The Northeast Guide for Estimating Staffing at Publicly and Privately Owned Wastewater Treatment Plants are packaged with a CD containing the charts in an interactive Excel spreadsheet format, which provides users with a simple way to use the charts to support and guide staffing decisions. To order a CD, which also contains the full text of the guide, contact NEIWPCC at 978-323-7929. To access a free downloadable version of the guide, visit our website at www.neiwpcc.org/technicalguides.asp.