Winooski – From Above, Atop, and Below the Surface

Winooski – From Above, Atop, and Below the Surface There are many vantage points from which to view a place and get to know it better. From above in an airplane your eye just naturally scans back from Lake Champlain toward the built landscape of Winooski; its buildings, parking lots, and a network of roads. Punctuating that landscape, the Winooski River and its riparian corridor not only define an official political boundary, but also offer visual connection to the Lake and to surrounding communities.

At ground-level, traveling either by car, bicycle, or on foot, Winooski is more difficult to describe so succinctly. A well-established downtown and the Woolen and Champlain Mills help to visually anchor a commercial district. Surrounding neighborhoods reflect a variety of housing types, churches, small storefronts, and a school. Numerous parks provide greenspace within the built environment.

Below-ground, Winooski takes on a much more utilitarian look. An important part of Winooski’s infrastructure delivers potable water for drinking, personal hygiene, cooling, cleaning, and other uses. A completely unconnected and separate system of pipes carries wastewater from thousands of separate drains and toilets to Winooski’s Wastewater Treatment Plant. Erik Bailey is chief operator and manager of the facility and it’s his job to ensure that the wastewater gets treated to exacting standards before being discharged to the Winooski River – which flows to Lake Champlain. Lake Champlain’s Shelburne Bay is Winooski’s source for drinking water! With intake and discharge so interconnected, wastewater treatment is very serious business. Erik says, “The City can only succeed if the wastewater coming into the plant is not highly polluted. This is where everyone can help; by preventing such contamination from happening.” 

Working collaboratively with the State of Vermont, Winooski established a wastewater monitoring program to determine potential sources of metals that were present within the City’s wastewater biosolids. Wastewater was sampled at each of twelve different sites throughout the city’s collection system and analyzed at the State lab. The sampling effort did not reveal a singular, large source of contamination consistently discharging into the system, rather, it indicated that there are probably multiple, smaller sources of contaminants. Some of the sources of contaminants may be from industrial, business, and residential activities, and likely could be reduced or eliminated by discontinuing or reducing the use of products with toxic constituents and using viable non-toxic alternatives, and by better managing hazardous waste.

Some lubricants and degreasers used for engines and other machinery contain a heavy metal called molybdenum. When such lubricants and degreasers get flushed down a drain into the City’s wastewater system they contaminate the wastewater and biosolids (aka sludge). The amount of molybdenum in the City’s biosolids has steadily increased over the past two years. To reduce levels of this contaminant, Winooski residents and businesses are urged to scan product labels and to phase out molybdenum-containing lubricants and degreasers for alternative products without molybdenum.

One source of lead in the City’s wastewater and biosolids is each resident’s home plumbing system. Lead-based solders, brass faucets, and bronze plumbing components can all leach lead into drinking water – and thus into wastewater as well. Winooski is a member of the Champlain Water District. Champlain Water District has been adding 0.2 to 0.3 mg/L of zinc to the drinking water to reduce this leaching. The zinc creates a protective coating within home piping and fixtures keeping lead and other metals from leaching into the water. This program has been very effective and has allowed Champlain Water District to become one of the first systems in Vermont to meet the USEPA action level for lead and copper leaching from home plumbing. Unfortunately, if the amount of zinc in biosolids gets too high, then the biosolids cannot qualify to be composted, as is presently done with Winooski’s biosolids. The zinc concentration in Winooski’s biosolids is close to this limit. Mike Barsotti, Water Quality Director of the Champlain Water District, says that this biosolids limit for zinc and CWD’s desire to assist town’s like Winooski to comply with this limit led CWD to look at optimizing and reducing their contribution of zinc to the wastewater biosolids while continuing to protect the public health. Champlain Water District optimized this treatment starting in February 2002 by utilizing a different zinc additive that will reduce zinc levels in wastewater and biosolids. 

City residents can further reduce and prevent lead risks by avoiding grounding electrical equipment (such as telephones) to water pipes. Any electric current traveling through the ground wire will accelerate the corrosion of metal pipes. According to Cathy Jamieson, wastewater specialist with the Agency of Natural Resources, “The overall quality of Winooski’s wastewater and biosolids is good, and in order to continue getting positive testing results, everyone has a role to play. Realizing that what goes down the drain doesn’t simply go away means that it’s everyone’s responsibility to see that spent solvents, degreasers, oils, paints, and pesticides all are disposed of properly at the Chittenden Solid Waste District’s Hazardous Waste Depot.” 

Purchasing least toxic and non-toxic products is an important strategy anyone can use to reduce household health risks and avoid contributing pollutants to wastewater. One easy way to practice this is to buy products that have none of the following signal words on their label: 

• Caution: mild to moderate hazard 
• Warning: moderate hazard 
• Danger: corrosive, extremely flammable, or highly toxic 
• Poison: highly toxic 

Where a non-toxic alternative can’t be found, consider purchasing a product with the signal word describing the lowest level of hazard possible, but that still gets the job done. If less-hazardous alternatives are not readily available, use the least amount of a hazardous product needed to accomplish a task, and either use up all of the product before you throw the container or packaging away or take it to the Hazardous Waste Depot. The US EPA has posted information about environmentally preferable purchasing on its website