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Tuesday, October 28, 2014 Media Contact: Jesse Broder Van Dyke 489-0341   Crews restore critical infrastructure at Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant following Hurricane Ana flooding damage   Sand Island – City crews and contract workers have successfully restored critical parts of Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant to pre-Hurricane Ana levels of operation.  As of yesterday, the four clarifier settling tanks which were online prior to the hurricane are back in working order.   Beginning Sunday morning, October 19, 2014, heavy rains caused by Hurricane Ana and ongoing construction led to flooding within the plant, short circuiting some of the plant's electrical systems and knocking clarifiers 4, 6, 7, and 8 offline.    Crews brought clarifier 6 back online just after 1 p.m. yesterday (10/27/14).  Clarifier 4 came online late Friday evening (10/24/14) just after 10 p.m.  It was announced last Wednesday (10/22/14) that crews had fixed the plant's two largest primary clarifiers, numbers 7 and 8.    Rotating arms on those clarifiers are now functioning and solids can now be moved out of those tanks to the gravity thickeners for processing.    The plant needs at least three clarifiers online at any given time during normal operations to process all of the incoming wastewater.  With four currently in operation there is an extra clarifier for redundancy.   The remaining clarifiers at the plant are intentionally offline for routine maintenance and previously planned reconstruction projects.    The egg-shaped digester operated by Synagro Technologies was restored to full service and resumed converting the plant's sludge into soil amendment pellets last Tuesday night (10/21/14).   In addition, contractor Parsons last Wednesday (10/22/14) plugged up the two holes in an offline channel to prevent a reoccurrence of wastewater overflowing into the basement area that contains electrical paneling.    On October 19, a spike in runoff water into the sewer system during heavy rains caused by Hurricane Ana caused an overflow within the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant. Five thousand gallons of partially treated waste water overflowed into Honolulu Harbor. At the same time, some 20 million gallons were thankfully contained in the basement area, damaging the electrical wiring but allowing it to be reintroduced into the treatment process.    -END-