Water/Sewer Utilities - City of Atlanta, Texas

The City of Atlanta engaged The Brannon Corporation to make preliminary investigations into the lack of sewage collection systems and the inadequacy of treatment facilities in the city.  As a result of the study, Brannon reported that over 17% of the city was not even served even though the treatment plant was completely loaded and out of compliance with its state and federal permits.  Brannon then assisted in the preparation of applications to the Texas Water Development Board for low interest loans totalling $5.5 million.  Of this amount, roughly $2.0 million was necessary to construct the replacement treatment plant. 

Because Atlanta is not a large city with a correspondingly large staff to maintain the treatment plant, Brannon engineers selected and designed a plant utilizing the Austgen BioJet (ABJ) Intermittent Cycle Extended Aeration System treatment process.  This plant, only the fourth in Texas, utilizes a single basin for aeration, sedimentation, and decanting but using computer technology to control the cycles.  The result of combining these functions into one basin is a more economical plant with very few moving parts.  In fact, within the aeration/sedimentation basin there is only one small submersible pump for sludge removal and one other moving part, the decant mechanism.  By its very design, the plant is efficient in removing nutrients such as ammonia nitrogen and phosphorus. 

The $2.0 million spent on treatment capacity includes treatment units, blower buildings, laboratory remodeling and sludge handling facilities with a capacity of 1.7 million gallon per day.  By far the biggest advantage to this design is the ease of operation and 'forgiving' nature of the process which tolerates high wet weather flows and  periodic high-pollutant slug flows. We have found this plant to be the best for cities in the 1,000 to 20,000 population categories because of the low staff requirements and ease of maintenance.

In addition to this plant, Brannon has designed other intermittent cycle plants in Livingston, Rio Vista and Clifton (all Texas).