By DOUGLAS W. MOTLEY – Senior Writer

The Alpine Mountaineer was invited to tour Crestline Sanitation District’s sanitation plant, which is located adjacent to Houston Creek, just below Lake Gregory Dam, on Monday, May 15, in an effort to inform the public of the agency’s ambitious expansion plans.

A trickling filter pit with sprinklers that filter effluent may be replaced someday with the emergence of updated technology.

The two-hour tour, led by Operations Maintenance Manager Brandon Ricksecker, who was assisted by district board member Sherri Fairbanks, began with a ride from the district office on Lake Drive, down a steep, paved road to our first stop at a large, circular, cement tank, which is called a clarifier. This is the first step in wastewater treatment and its job is to remove suspended solids, oil and grease. During this step, solids floating at the surface and other large particles are removed before biological treatment.

One of several settling tanks at Crestline Sanitation District’s sanitation plant.

Our next stop was at a gravel pit with sprinklers that’s called a trickling pit. This is where wastewater is further processed and sanitized with a chlorine solution before it is sent down a 12-mile-long outfall to Las Flores Ranch, east of Silverwood Lake, where it is deposited in settling ponds on the 30 acres owned by Crestline Sanitation District on the 850-acre ranch.

“This process, which is called trickling, is where beneficial bacteria literally eat disease-bearing coliform bacteria,” said Ricksecker, a Rim High School graduate who received his Sanitation Operator certification at Sacramento State University.

Ricksecker added, “This is actually the last one of these in the country and it may be replaced someday by the emergence of updated technology.”

The district is also responsible for wastewater treatment for the Seely Creek and Cleghorn Canyon wastewater plants and is compensated for providing service to them.

Currently under construction is a secondary clarifier, which turns sludge into cakes for transport out of the area. Other recent additions to the plant are two more settling tanks, an odor scrubber that passes the outdoor air through water and filters it before releasing it back into the air, and an apparatus that manufactures sodium hydrochloride (chlorine) by mixing rock salt with water and electricity.

Operations Maintenance Manager Brandon Ricksecker points out one of many new construction projects to board of directors member Sherri Fairbanks.

“Fortunately, most of our apparatuses are gravity-fed. This saves us a lot on electricity costs,” Ricksecker said.

Next, we visited a settling tank, where sludge is separated from the water. “Solids,” Ricksecker said, “sink to the bottom of the tank and are then sent to the Solids Processing Building, where they are turned into dry-cake fertilizer, which is trucked to San Timoteo Canyon and sold to a fertilizer company.

“Due to the increase in the population of Crestline,” Ricksecker said, “we now have 4,700 ratepayers (customers) and we process 700,000 gallons of wastewater a day; however, at times, especially during holiday weekends, we process two-and-a-half million gallons a day and the state would like to see us increase our capacity.”

Noting that overall treatment plant expansion is costing $12 million, Ricksecker said, “We’re getting it in chunks in a 2-percent loan and we are spending as we go. So far, we’ve spent about $6 million on improvements.”

This two-million-gallon emergency storage tank was pressed into use during a recent winter storm flood.

At the conclusion of the very informative and fascinating tour, Fairbanks noted that one of the assignments she volunteers for is as district safety officer. As such, following a recent encounter with a rattlesnake, she hosted a rattlesnake awareness seminar for the district’s 16 employees.

Of the employees, Ricksecker said 90 percent of them, including himself, are ratepayers who have families here on the mountain. “Our employees are dedicated and have the best interest of the community at heart, and at times they are ‘jacks of all trades’ and have to be ‘all-hands-on-deck,’ like they were during the blizzard when they walked through snow to get to work.

“They do it because they love their job.”