Hammond, LA

Improve Water Quality and Enhance Wetlands

     Mayor Foster said he quickly learned that the solution wasn't just to build bigger sewage treatment plants; because regulators said the streams receiving the city's discharges couldn't take another drop of treated sewage. According to the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental the solution Mayor Foster, engineers and wetland scientists came up with is not only cheaper than a new mechanical treatment plant, but also has the benefit of helping deteriorating wetlands.

Comite Resources, Inc., evaluated the feasibility of discharging secondarily-treated effluent into the South Slough wetlands and the Joyce Wildlife Management Area (JWMA) wetlands to provide tertiary treatment to the wastewater prior to discharge to local water bodies. This Baseline Ecological Study (EBS) was carried out to 1) determine the suitability of the South Slough wetlands and the JWMA wetlands for assimilation of treated effluent, and 2) evaluate the potential impacts of discharge of treated effluent to these wetlands. Environmental data were collected and analyzed for base line data on vegetation dynamics, water and soil chemistry, and hydrology. Hammond's wastewater treatment facilities is the source of the water, which have a combined volume of 4 million gallons per day (MGD), but is expected to increase up to 6.5 MGD in the foreseeable future.