CITY OF LOS ANGELES
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS

Technical Corner

The City of Los Angeles’ Hyperion Treatment Plant sent divers into the Plant’s 5-Mile Outfall on November 28 to 30, 2006 to assess its structural condition, evaluate its reliability and identify potential trouble spots before they could become problems.

The documents linked below describe the necessity of the inspection, how the processworked, and what precautions were taken.

	PRESS RELEASE
	Basic project information
	FACT SHEET
	Maps and background of the operation
	PRESENTATION
	Project details and illustrations

In addition, the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System provided real-time data related to the activity.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COASTAL OCEAN OBSERVING SYSTEM

For more information, contact the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Public Works at (213) 978-0333, or e-mail pao@lacity.org.

Maintenance and Operations

Maintenance personnel at Hyperion perform scheduled and corrective maintenance on thousands of pieces of manual and computer-controlled equipment. The work is carried out by about 275 skilled staff members. The spectrum of work ranges from tasks as simple as changing light bulbs to replacing 1200 horsepower motors.

Plant operations staff consists of 150 people who are responsible for taking readings, monitoring operations, making adjustments to equipment, and conducting preventive maintenance. Staff is on duty 24 hours a day to ensure that the plant functions properly.

Maintenance and operations staffs join teams, participate in workshops, and go on retreats that are designed to encourage feedback on how to improve the plant’s efficiency and effectiveness. Staff and management collaboration have resulted in significant cost savings for the City and its ratepayers.

Budget Information:

World’s - first and world-class technologies in abundance

The original treatment plant that was built in 1950 left little room for expansion or construction of new facilities at Hyperion. Designers turned to several world’s-first and emerging technologies to keep treatment of wastewater, biosolids, and biogas within the property’s footprint while pursuing the best treatment processes to protect the public heath and the health of Santa Monica Bay.

Some of the cutting-edge processes that have been utilized include the following:

• The U.S. ’s first liquid "redox" process was installed to remove hydrogen sulfide from digester gas
• One of the world’s largest and earliest full-scale installation of high capacity, high performance dewatering centrifuges (nine total) are at Hyperion, each rated at 600 gallons per minute
• One of the world’s largest collection of egg-shaped digesters are operating at Hyperion – 20 digesters that can handle 45 million gallons of biosolids plus 18 original digesters that can handle 35 MGD
• A biogas/steam energy exchange agreement
• The tracking of odors and installation of odor scrubbers enabled Hyperion to achieve a 10-fold decrease in the number of odor complaints while essentially doubling the size of the operating facilities
• Los Angeles is the largest municipal agency in the U.S. converting sludge to Class A (exceptional quality) Biosolids using a pasteurization process; these biosolids have been produced since 2000