PALMER — Flush the toilet and be done with it.

That’s the extent most who live on city sewer service think about wastewater. From their drain, it enters a nebulous world few will ever see. It doesn’t matter what happens to it, so long as it flows in the right direction.

However, this positive flow is increasingly in jeopardy. The wastewater treatment facilities around the Valley are coming under fire from both local residents and federal officials. There are calls for a joint facility treating sewage from both cities, as well as the septic pumpage from the rest of the borough, but those plans are years away and tens of millions of dollars short of reality.

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In the meantime, Palmer has plans of its own. With a $2.5 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the city will soon have a system that functions flawlessly year-round without the use of any chemicals.

The current system was created in the 1950s with the first treatment pond dug the next decade, city utilities manager John Berberich said. Today, the facility cleans 500,000 to 1 million gallons of sewage every day.

Six lift stations bring the sewage in from the 1,850 commercial and residential customers around the city. The raw liquid is pumped through two giant screws that extract all the solid materials that cannot be broken down.

“We’ve picked out boots and sheets. You should see some of the stuff that comes from the jail,” Berberich said. “Those things will shred pretty much anything.”

After the non-organics are removed, the sewage is processed in the three connected ponds. Air is blown into the water, stimulating the growth of the naturally occurring bacteria. It takes about 30 days for water to pass from the beginning of the first pond to the end of the last. During that time, the bacteria eats the solid organic waste.

The water is then run through a high-intensity ultraviolet light for sterilization.

“Even if you just passed your hand under it, the light would cook it,” Berberich said. “It changes the DNA of the bacteria so they cannot reproduce.”

The end result is pumped into the Matanuska River.

“The Canadian who installed the light said you can drink it. But he didn’t, so I won’t,” Berberich said. “But I guarantee it is cleaner than the water it is pumped into.”

However, while the current system is an organic process without chemicals, it is not without flaws.

Residents in the area of the facility off Outer Springer Loop often complain of a strong odor, especially in the spring. The Environmental Protection Agency found the ammonia levels in the discharge are too high during much of the winter.

What’s more, the EPA requirements are going to become stricter in 2011. With fines in the tens of thousands of dollars per day, being out of compliance is not an option.

The cause is simple, Palmer Public Works Director Carter Cole said. Despite the constant aeration, three exposed ponds are bound to freeze over when the temperature drops. Because the bacteria cannot survive under the ice, the breakdown does not take place, Cole said. This means the level of ammonia in the discharge jumps in the winter, and the smell really picks up when the ice breaks and the process picks up again.

“It’s really a balancing act. Too cold and the process stops. Too hot and the bacteria expands too fast, eats all the food, and starves to death. The perfect temperature is around 50 degrees,” Cole said.

To achieve this happy medium — and with the help of the big, fat stimulus check — the city is requesting proposals for a floating cover that will insulate the first pond. This will allow for that 50-degree target year-round, reduce ammonia to almost zero and hopefully prevent the smell that comes with break-up season, Cole said.

In the planning process, the city discovered only one pond would be sufficient for the bacteria breakdown process. The second pond will be used to stabilize and remove the nitrogen from the water, a process that can be done underneath ice. The water will flow directly from the second pond into the UV sterilization room. The third pond will sit dormant until larger plans convert it into a sort of sewage processing wetland.

Once complete, the updated system will be able to process the city’s wastewater for the immediate future while keeping the same, environmentally sound process.

“We will easily be able to handle 1.5 million gallons per (day), around double of what our current load is,” Cole said. “This is the most efficient process the EPA has identified.”

Cole is hopeful the cover will be installed by the end of this year. It will take about two and a half weeks to thaw the ice underneath, and there should be no stink come spring.

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.