The Town of Swampscott converted its aging primary wastewater treatment plant to a pumping station in 1990, sending all of its wastewater to Lynn for treatment at the Lynn Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility.  The station housed three 250-hp pumps on variable frequency drives (VFDs), and a headworks operation with two comminutors.  Currently, seven remote lift stations deliver wastewater to the main station, and communicate with the main station via telephone lines.  The station is unmanned, and protected by an alarm system and auto-dialer.  Between 1990 and 2007, there were no major upgrades made to the station.  The VFDs were proving to be more difficult to maintain due to their age and eventual obsolescence.  Finally in 2009 Ms. Masone arranged for an energy audit by the electric utility, National Grid, in an attempt to access funds dedicated to energy efficiency projects to upgrade the station.  After a lengthy discovery period, it was determined that the pumps were significantly oversized for the duty flow at the station, and were operating mostly at their lowest speed except during storm conditions.  This mode of operation was very inefficient in terms of energy consumption, and hard mechanically on the pumps and motors.

After receiving commitment from National Grid of a utility incentive in the amount of $50,000 and securing other Town Funds for the project, the Town developed a pump station upgrade project including replacement of the three obsolete VFDs on the large pumps, and installation of a smaller “duty” pump sized to meet daily flow demands.  This new operational configuration was projected to save nearly $10,000 in electric costs annually.  Simultaneously the project addressed the obsolete VFDs that were proving to be very difficult to keep running.

In addition to driving the project’s development and securing funds from multiple sources, Victoria administered and managed the entire construction project, including reviewing programming for the new Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and integrating the new equipment with the existing station operation.  As an added challenge, the station had to remain online throughout construction so as not to interrupt wastewater service for residents.