Taking Care of Business

Not everyone knows that our homeowner association here in High Country Pines II (aka Pine Country HOA), operates their own Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP). Most homes in the Heber/Overgaard area are on their own expensive septic system. Every lot owner in our development has part ownership in the WWTP by virtual of their membership in the Pine Country HOA corporation. The members elect a board to run this corporation.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality requires us to meet many requirements in order for the WWTP to "take care of everyone's business" so to speak. The main requirement is that we utilize a state certified operator.

This year, due to the WWTP Operator terminating service in May, the board contracted with a new Operator. The new contract is more expensive because it includes more services needed to meet state requirements and maintain the value of the WWTP.

At our recent HOA Member meeting, it was suggested that it would be good for the board to publish more details on what the new contract provides versus the prior contract. The table below shows a detailed list of the differences.

Activities	New	Prior
Certified Operator review of daily test results and direction to onsite personnel	Daily	​Once per Month
​Weekly Project team meetings regarding plant performance, and necessary process changes	Yes	No
Number of Onsite Evaluations per week	6	1-2
​Remote SCADA Evaluation 2 Days per week	Yes	No
​Backup Operators as necessary	Yes	No
​Alarm On-call Personnel	Yes	No
​Ordering of Chemicals as necessary	Yes	Yes
​Test equipment calibration and testing	Yes	Some
​Provide Equipment and Tools required to perform tasks	Yes	No
Monthly, Quarterly, and Annual testing as required by Permits & Regulatory Agency	Yes	Yes
​Provide Monthly Owner Updates	Yes	No
Provide Record retention (Electronic and paper)	Yes	No
​Supply of treatment plant computer for Monitoring, Reports, and records	Yes	No
Annual Maintenance Activities
​​Change Blower Oil & Air Filters	Yes	No
Repair and/or replace air diffusers in all tanks (bio-reactors, re-areation, FEQ, Sludge tanks)	Yes	No
Pull and inspect FEQ pumps	Yes	No
Pull and inspect Effluent pumps	Yes	No
Lubrication of blower motors and 3-phase converter motor	Yes	Yes
Yard weed control	Yes	Yes
Power wash Manways	Yes	Yes