After roughly 18 months of planning, demolition and construction, the Belmont Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant is home to a new centralized control room that is helping streamline operations and provide employees with access to new opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Prior to the construction of the new facility, Belmont operated from three control rooms; two to operate the liquid side of the process, and one to operate the solids side. All three of those areas and associated staff are being consolidated in the new control room, which is located in the Belmont administration building.
The new control room also is designed so employees can monitor Citizens’ 268 lift stations across Marion County, and it allows for improved monitoring of Eagle Creek Dam. The control room will eventually feature an expanded camera/security system for all areas of Citizens’ wastewater facilities.
Jeff Hansen, Director of Wastewater Plant Operations, said, “The consolidation provides an opportunity for staff to make decisions as a group, rather than operating the plants as three separate entities. It also allows for quicker response during heavy rain events, and it balances the DigIndy Tunnel System loads between plants, optimizing equipment operation and resulting in energy efficiency.”
Another benefit of the centralized location is closer proximity of employees to their managers and supervisors, which fosters increased communication and makes scheduling staff and safety meetings much easier.
The transition to the new control room will be gradual, giving employees a chance to adapt to the new environment by moving back and forth between their previous control rooms and the new one.
The effort to centralize Belmont’s operations into one location was understandably a significant one.
“Capital Projects Engineer Dan Kramer has been instrumental throughout the course of the project, from conception to completion,” Hansen said. “Among other things, he headed up a small team of plant operators to make sure their needs and requirements of operating around the clock were represented.”
Crit Crabtree, Manager of Facility Operations, who was employed by Marksmen Construction during most of the project, headed up the demolition and construction, collaborating with his crews and other service providers to ensure the facility met Belmont’s needs.
“This new control room and resulting streamlined operations will greatly benefit the wastewater process overall and Citizens as a whole,” said Hansen. “It also will allow our employees to develop knowledge of how to operate parts of the process they’ve never operated and will equip them with the skills to make team decisions for the good of the entire system.”
