ROBERTSDALE — A growing population is leading to local sewage treatment plants increasing capacity and a question of where the treated water left over from the process can be disposed of.
At a recent meeting of the Baldwin County Environmental Advisory Committee, Tony Schachle, chief wastewater engineer for Riviera Utilities, described work done to improve and expand the system's sewage treatment plant in Foley.
"We just upgraded, added 1.5 million gallons of treatment capacity per day, from 2 million to 3.5 million," Schachle told committee members.
Leslie Gahagan, Foley environmental director, said the Riviera expansion has been recognized for the work to meet growing demand while protecting the environment.
Schachle said the plant treats about 1.8 million gallons of sewage on an average day. At the current growth rate for the area, the expansion should be enough to meet system's needs for about 10 years.

"It's something that we are looking at closely," Schachle said. "Every time we see another subdivision come in, that has to be taken into account."
He said the plant has enough room to continue expansions. With more expansion, the plant could treat as much as 10 to 12 million gallons of sewage a day. The plant, however, discharges treated water into Wolf Creek.
"The question then would be how could we put 10 to 12 million gallons into Wolf Creek, so that becomes a problem," Schachle said.
Ashley Campbell, Baldwin County environmental planner, said the Environmental Advisory Committee had set a 2022 goal of finding ways to reduce water going into Baldwin streams from wastewater plants. She said growth will make that goal difficult to achieve.
Schachle said some alternatives to discharging into steams could include using some of the water for irrigation or other purposes. He said local systems would have to work with state agencies, such as the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to design programs and set environmental regulations for reusing water.
"Even though there are some significant challenges to reuse, it is theoretically feasible," Schachle said. "But I think in order for that to become something that is going to make a significant impact, there's going to have to be some sort of concerted effort. It's going to take some kind of political push. It's going to take some sort of regulation, whether that's through ADEM or whatever the case may be."
He said Riviera officials have looked at finding other ways to dispose of water from the plant but have not found a source for the material.
"It was conceptualized in Foley, but never followed through," Schachle said. "There just wasn't a customer. There wasn't a place for it to go. That becomes a problem. We're talking about millions of gallons a day. You can't do that very efficiently just by a couple of homeowners turning on their irrigation system in their yard."
He said water from sewage plants would also have to be treated to a higher level if it was used in areas around people.
"To get a point where you could use this, especially in a residential setting, ball fields or anything like that. It's got to be treated to a different level," he said.
Campbell said Riviera had also conducted a pilot project to discharge wastewater into wetland areas.
It worked pretty good but I don't think it had the ability to treat it to the level that ADEM really needed," Campbell said.