Case Study: TASKMASTER® TM8540, an Inexpensive Solution to an Expensive Problem

Guelph, a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada is known as “The Royal City”. With a low crime rate, clean environment and generally high standard of living, the city with a population of 114,943, is consistently rated as one of the country’s best places to live.

The Wastewater Services Division operates the 17mgd activated sludge plant, which provides tertiary treatment, discharging to the Speed River. Biosolids are anaerobically digested and mechanically dewatered. They are then applied to agricultural land, further processed within the facility’s composting systems, or landfilled. Over the past few years, the city has initiated a number of projects including upgrades to the water treatment facilities and wastewater treatment plant. They also have commissioned and built two sewage pump stations incorporating the newest technology.

“I was the project manager for building those pump stations,” said Majde Qaqish, Project Engineer at the City of Guelph. “They were the first of their design in the City. We encountered a problem at one station, the pipe’s incoming flow (40 feet below ground) was offset 18” from the inlet trash basket at the wet well.”

To solve the problem, several solutions were considered.

1. Reinstall the pipe at 40 feet deep, a very costly option, requiring major, time consuming excavation work.
2. Replace the sub pumps with grinder pumps, another very costly option (major mechanical and electrical work).
3. Place a channel grinder at the inlet of the wet well.

“Finally after careful review and 12 months of meetings, we decided to go with the third option,” said Qaqish. “This option was the most feasible and cost effective. We then reviewed which channel grinder would meet our specifications, comparing prices, availability, and support.”

The plant ultimately purchased a Franklin Miller TASKMASTER® TM8540 Channel Grinder and according to Qaqish it was the right choice. “To this date and after 24hrs/7 days a week of operation for a total of 2 years we have not had one single issue with the running of the channel grinder (mechanical or electrical),” he concluded. “The continuous support and the training that was provided by Franklin Miller was most outstanding. As a result, the City is now considering placing another TASKMASTER Grinder in the Sewage pump facility in lieu of the trash basket.”