Cleansing wastewater for good of nature made for a proud career

In with the bad, out with the good!

Jerry King has seen that cycle repeating many times over in his more than 30 years as the city of Neillsville’s wastewater plant operator.  He was seeing to it one final time last Thursday, his last day on the job, and it brought a smile on his face.

There is a pride, he said to be taken in being part of the process of transforming a virtual river of raw waste and rain run-off entering the sewer plant on the city’s west side into the environmentally-safe water that is deposited into the nearby Black River.

That task was more challenging when he first started part-time at the old sewer plant back in 1973, King recalled.  The out-dated and undersized plant could only process 650 gallons of wastewater per minute, hardly enough capacity to adequately handle the incoming torrent during times of a heavy rainfall.

The sprawling new plant, built in 1997 for $3.5 million, can take on up to 1,400 gallons per minute.  With a capacity of up to 1.6 million gallons a day, the new plant has proven to be up to the deluges it’s had to face during the past decade, according to King.

King’s daily routine has included maintaining the wastewater plant’s equipment such as separators and oxidizers.  But the biggest change in recent years has been the amount of testing required to assure the safety of the water that is headed for a river, just 75 feet away, filled with fish and other aquatic wildlife.

"There is a lot more of it," King said of the testing requirements due to the high standards brought on by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR).  "I may work for the city, but the DNR tells me what to do," King said.

The complex series of testing is done in the wastewater plant’s spotless laboratory and with an extensive array of vials and measuring gages that a class of science students could appreciate.  As part of the daily testing regiment, King has taken samples both of wastewater coming in and the cleansed liquid coming out.  "Our effluent," King said of the discharged water, "could go into any trout stream in the U. S."

DNR officials, in both unannounced and regularly scheduled inspections of the Neillsville plant, have been impressed enough to nominate King as "Operator of the Year," in 2005 and again 2006.  The Wisconsin Rural Water Association also took note of his achievements, nominating him for recognition as the association’s "2005 Operator of the Year."

Looking back, King appreciates the modern facility and its processing capability that has allowed him to do the work in which he has taken personal pride over the years.

"I’m proud of what I put in the river.  I know how dirty it was and I know how clean it’s become.  It’s a good feeling," he said.

But with a work schedule of 11 days on duty and three days off, King, who just turned 61, said the time had come for him to retire and have more time to spend with his family.

King said he also plans to catch up on hunting and some fishing, of course.  He prefers the deep waters of the Mississippi, he said, but he wouldn’t hesitate fishing on the Black River, either.