Thank you

Estimating Staffing Levels for Municipal Wastewater Treatment Facilities, published in 1973 by the EPA Office of Water Program Operations under Contract # 68-01-0328

EPA Technical Report:  Operation and Maintenance Costs for Municipal Wastewater Facilities, EPA 430/9-81-004, Also by the Office of Water Program Operations.

Tim

Report # EPA 430/9-81-004;FRD-22

Stock# PB81-249971

EPA online library system (OLS)

Remember these are 1981 costs and staffing but it's pretty close in the staffing part.

We are architects specializing in the design of water and wastewater labs, and have been recording such information for quite a while.  We can't help you with the rest of the plant !

Roger Newill   rnewill@rfnarchitect.com  757.228.5880

Roger Newill, Architect

The early EPA staffing documents seemed to be a response to the fact that the now plants funded through the Grants didn't run well.  Rather than focus on the root cause of their failures, the assumption was made that they were understaffed.  That led to the "staffing manuals".  These numbers are often 2 to 3 times higher than are used today in streamlined operations.

Another approach is to analyze the work required at the plant of choice.  Here again,  it's subject to a wide range of interpretation and expectations.  Some plants have an operator sit at a council and take "no-doze" and call someone for help when an alarm comes.  Converesly, otheres have the alarm go to an operator thru a pager and he's doing something else most of the time.  Others  have looked at the idea of having a person repsonsible for entire areas of a plant (operation & maintenance) and they typically are staffed at a lower level than the traditionally organized operations with seperate opertor & maintenance jobs.

Another issue is how willing is a person willing to add labor saving options to reduce labor.  Add a camera and audio pick-up to your SCADAsystem and one person can check 20 places in 5 minutes.  Likewise, I've seen that a properly designed centrifuge can replace the operator for a belt press operation and produce a thicker sludge.

Shift needs are another question impacted by the above points.  Personally, I eliminated lots of problems and failures after we eliminated 3rd shift and replaced it with a security guard.   There again...that's someone's call.

To proivde some direct resposne to your question, a number that seems to be fairly good by industry standards is 1 FTE per MGD of plant.

Another thing is Benchmarking...  WERF did some good work in the mid-late '90's that is more likely to provide some insight to your questions.

By now you've probably acted on whatever direction you thought best.  One idea that I realized after directing a typical plant organization for years was a troubling thought...than changed my perspective on plant organization away from the norm...I realized that "every employee should be able to go home and tell their spouse and child what they accomplished that day". 

Final thought...once you're operation is set....look at how it could be refined or streamlined...or how you can make a repetitive failure end.  Do it often enough and you'll reduce your staffing.

Have FUN!!!!