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Public Works turns to MeadWestvaco for help
Waste treatment, salt, humidity attack CPW’s systems
By Matthew French
Staff Writer
When the Charleston Commissioners of Public Works found its computer servers at the Plum Island wastewater treatment facility suddenly were malfunctioning, not many would have considered the problem might be found in the air.
But when CPW called in MeadWestvaco Air Systems division, that’s exactly what they discovered.
“In 2001, the CPW contacted us regarding problems they were having with their servers in their administration building,” says Jack Eichenbach, vice president of sales for MeadWestvaco Air Systems. “Apparently, their servers were crashing every few months and they couldn’t figure out why. So we installed some corrosion monitoring systems. We went in not expecting much, but the system showed the corrosive gasses inside there were severe.”
The air systems division of MeadWestvaco, best known locally for its paper and pulp plant in North Charleston, was founded when the company began to experience problems similar to those the CPW would have decades later. It turns out that a common chemical, hydrogen sulfide, which is a by-product of both wastewater treatment and paper and pulp making, is terribly corrosive and potentially damaging to a number of systems.
Russell Huggins, general manager of the Plum Island site, says the location of the facility, on James Island where the Ashley and Cooper rivers split, is a particularly harsh one for electronic components.
The Plum Island Water Pollution Control Facility’s Administration Building, outlying motor control centers and electrical rooms were highly corrosive environments with corrosion rates more than 20 times greater than recommended for the protection of electrical and electronic systems, Huggins says.
One of the problems CPW had to face, Huggins says, is that the site was using a typical air-cooling method that draws air from outside into the building. The air was slowly killing its electronics systems.
“We knew we had problems several years back,” says Huggins. “The computers in our Plum Island administration building on James Island that we used to automate the water treatment process and network were routinely failing because of the corrosion on the connections on the computer chips. We couldn’t even rely on standard intra-office e-mail between the Plum Island treatment plant and the main administration on St. Philips Street. The only problems of this nature that we were having were at Plum Island.”
MeadWestvaco Air Systems took on the problem by keeping corrosive gases out of the control room environments through the use of a filtration system using a deep bed of specialty activated carbon.
This system works on the principle of supplying a purified air stream to pressurize the enclosed area to minimize the possibility of corrosive gas intrusion into the control room.
“We activated a carbon-based system that basically takes air out, scrubs it, and sends it to a cooling room inside the cabinet,” says Eichenbacher. “From that, we found they were having the same problems all over the plant. There was an issue in the administration building with respect to peoples’ protection. Having corrosive gas in a building means that other gasses can be in there as well. It was a potentially severe environmental problem.”
Berkeley County officials had to close their sewage treatment facility in Goose Creek in November for a problem caused by a foul odor and gasses. Employees began to experience headaches and the administrative offices had to move to temporary sites. The facility has yet to re-open. MeadWestvaco is hoping to employ its air cleaning solution there, as well. The damage and contamination caused by the gasses made reoccupying the facility cost-prohibitive.
“The real issue about the (Plum Island) administrative building was a psychological hit,” Eichenbacher says. “After the systems were in place, people felt better about being in the building. Since then, we’ve added three more systems.
About 22 years ago, MeadWestvaco tested its corrosion protection system at the North Charleston paper and pulp mill.
As with just about every industry, the business of wastewater treatment and other public works is becoming increasingly digitized. Gone are the days of the hulking, heavy-duty control equipment where corrosion wasn’t much of a factor.
“Now everything is on microchip and chips are very, very vulnerable to corrosive failures,” says Eichenbacher. “Microchips simply won’t last unless they’re afforded some form of protection. It’s hard to do the books if you don’t have the data and it’s hard to get the data if the servers are always crashing.”
Huggins says that CPW has made major headway into automating its systems, and now must make the additional investment to make sure the critical monitoring and controlling infrastructure is protected.
Huggins says that since MeadWestvaco’s systems have been installed, the Plum Island administrative facility’s systems have near 100% reliability, with no reported corrosion-related electrical or electronic system failures.
Matthew French is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at mfrench@crbj.com.
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