What do drugs, money, human teeth, diamond rings and a live turtle have in common?
They've all been fished out of Cortez's sewer system.
At the head works of the Cortez Sanitation District's sewer treatment plant, Jay Conner pulls back a metal hatch, revealing a trench through which the raw sewage sloshes — fresh from the district's more than 60 miles of pipes serving many of the Cortez area's more than 8,400 people.
“We're on the front line,” Conner said of the plant and its workers. “It's probably one of the best environmental protections you can have.”
The trench was covered by panels after neighbors complained of the smell.
A rake and auger system picks out larger debris and garbage, all of which is taken to its rightful home in the county landfill. Too much garbage, such as plastic wrappers and feminine hygiene products can gum up the plant's pumps, Conner said. These items should be thrown in the garbage.
A second process removes smaller items, such as rocks, sand and eggshells. The gritty mixture also contains a fair amount of corn.
Petroleum products, paint, paint thinners, herbicides and kitchen grease are also harmful to the system, Conner said, and should not be dumped down the drain.
The sewage is then separated into solids and liquids. Bio-solids, also known as “cake,” can be trucked off as fertilizer on dry-land pastures during the summer, or used on the top layer of garbage pits during the winter at the Montezuma County Landfill to promote future re-vegetation.
Although workers wear protective eye wear, emergency eyewash stations are located around the plant in case of splatter accidents.
“It can get kind of nasty at times,” Conner said.
The plant works on a parallel system, with at least two of everything in case something should break down.
“You don't shut off the sewer.” Conner said. “It just doesn't stop running.”
Most of the action takes place in dual olympic-sized basins, where millions of microbes devour remaining waste and dangerous pathogens in a carefully monitored ecosystem of nutrients, liquid and oxygen — which is pumped in through air diffusers.
“Sewage treatment is really about maintaining a bunch of microbes,” said Sue Story, a scientist at the plant. In fact, few chemicals are used in the process at all.
The microbes explode with vigor when hit with oxygen at one end of the basin, then gradually lose strength as the material moves towards the other end.
“It's a life cycle just like any life cycle,” Conner said.
Once a year, the 800,000 gallon basins are drained and painstakingly cleaned.
“It takes weeks to do,” Conner said.
After leaving the large basins, the sewage — now a translucent liquid — is pumped to two round settling tanks where the remaining solids are skimmed off the bottom.
Surviving microbes will be sterilized by ultraviolet light before leaving the plant and will be unable to reproduce.
The finished product is clear as it trickles into McElmo Creek, and is actually cleaner than the water in the creek, Story said,
Although the water released into the creek is not treated to a level that is potable, Conner said it is safe for irrigation.
“The treatment is designed to take the pollutants out of the water, not for drinking,” he said.
Truckloads of septic material can also treated at the facility. Conner said this material is 10 times stronger than standard sewage and is billed accordingly.
Not including microbials or board members, the entire Cortez sanitation plant and pipeline system is run by just 12 multi-cellular human employees, Conner said. These Jacks (and Jills) of all trades must possess a wide variety of skill sets, including sewer line maintenance, biology, chemistry, electronics, pump maintenance and auto mechanics.
It takes four years of education or experience before one can even take the test to become certified as a top-level sanitation worker, Conner said.
The $10 million Cortez treatment plant was completed in 2006, Conner said. It was funded by a bond approved by voters in 2000 and replaced three separate plants formerly serving the population of the Cortez area. Conner estimates the new plant has the capability of serving a population of approximately 11,000.
Reach Reid Wright at reidw@cortezjournal.com