Lake Charles wastewater systems were “on the honor roll” for the 2022 Louisiana Municipal Water Pollution Prevention (MWPP) environmental audits, said Kevin Heise, Lake Charles Water and Wastewater Management Specialist.

The environmental audits, which apply to wastewater treatment systems, are self-described reports that are required to be completed on an annual basis by Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

For this “report card,” wastewater plants are scored on various aspects of operations, such as machine functionality, age of facilities, environmental concerns and reliability and pollutant levels. “We score ourselves based on the data that we have,” said Heise.

Points are given based on compliance issues; the higher the score, the worse the plants performed. City of Lake Charles Wastewater Treatment Plant A, 128 W. Railroad Avenue, scored a 92.5 out of 560. Plant BC, 1132 West 18th St, scored 87.5 out of 560, while Plant D, 3820 Tank Farm Road, scored 55 out of 560.

Heise stated that these are passing grades. “When you think about when you were in school, that’s a 90 percentile, which is very good,” he said.

As a part of compliance requirements, MWPP environmental audits have the governing body of the municipality review the reports before being sent to the DEQ.

These reports were presented to the Lake Charles City Council on Tuesday, March 28.

Craig Mark, District F, expressed concern over non compliances issues at Plant BC.

Heise explained that the plants experienced exceedances in ammonia and nitrogen resulting from specialty equipment failures. The report stated that DEQ has been notified of the plans for repairs, which were delayed by long lead time from manufacturers.

Heise assured the council that the machinery is “back in spec.”

Plant A experienced hydraulic overloading during heavy rainfall in 2022, as well as some weekly maximum exceedances of Enterococci in May and weekly maximum exceedances for fecal coliform bacteria in October.

During the week of August 22 through 28, 2022, wastewater systems at Plant D experienced an exceedance of the permit limit for fecal coliform bacteria.

Heise attributed compliance issues to post-hurricane recovery. “Even after all the storm damage, we’re still doing some hurricane repairs,” he said. “We still managed to have a very positive impact on the community by doing a very good job in our wastewater facilities.”

“With all communities, all industrial facilities, those [compliance issues] are something that (we) never want to happen…We work with those. We try to keep our machinery operating as well as we can… we want to avoid those at all times.”

The council approved the MWPP reports unanimously.