"In Treatment - Holding his nose, Tim tours Concord's Waste Water Treatment Facility"

I need a favor. Today’s topic concerns things not meant for polite conversation, so can we agree to a simple word swap? In the place of terms and phrases that refer to unavoidable biological processes, I’ll insert different words, like “sunshine,” “joy,” “roses,” and “happiness.” Your cooperation is appreciated.

I arrive at Concord’s Waste Water Treatment Facility (aka, WWTF) at 7 AM, ready to delve into Concord’s happiness, to find out how we handle this happiness, and what it takes to receive, clean, test, treat and dispense of the city’s happiness, in all its forms.

Since moving here six years ago, I’ve noticed that smell, usually while driving on the highway just south of the city’s center. This odor’s become a steady feature on all O’Shea family road trips. “Yuck! What’s that smell?” one of us would remark, earning the standard response, “It’s the waste water treatment plant!” followed by a chorus of approving nods. I’ll note that using the same excuse while sitting in traffic outside Boston is not met with the same approval. Medford’s a long way from Exit 13, but you can’t blame a guy for trying.

Mike Hanscomb, WWTF’s Superintendant, greets me at the door and introduces me to Mark Fuller, the facility’s Operations Supervisor. Mark wastes no time sharing terms like “Activated Sludge Plant,” “Sequence Batch Reactor,” and “rapid dewatering process.” When he says this last phrase, he adds, “We’ll save that part for last,” and chuckles a bit. What goes on upstairs, I wonder. I don’t know sunshine from shinola.

This facility opened in 1981, processes five million gallons a day and is staffed by fifteen employees, many with long tenures here. I meet Roy Tobin, a twenty-five year veteran of the WWTF and my host at our first stop on today’s Tournament of Roses Parade.

“We’re going to the Influent building,” Roy says as we drive, a light misty rain falling on the windshield. “This is where everything starts.” I open the truck door and can smell it, an odor that crawls up my nose, over my eyes and rests like swamp gas on my brain. Roy, and his co-worker, Burt Richards, he too a long-time veteran of the business, don’t seem to notice a thing.

The Influent building is where the roses arrive, sent from pump stations across the city, and travel up three huge inclined pipes, each filled with enormous 60-foot screws, like something out of Journey to the Center of the Earth. The liquid roses churn upward into giant rectangle structures with tightly packed steel combs that remove sticks, leaves, gravel, and what Roy refers to as “rags.” Today’s the one day of the week that Roy and Burt haul everything’s that been combed out of the millions of gallons of rose-filled water for burning, leaving it devoid of anything that can’t be broken down by biology.

Back at the main building Tom Neforas, the Lab Manager, greets me. “We provide analysis to meet state and federal guidelines,” Tom says, adding details about reducing solids, bio-oxygen demands, and water quality until he’s interrupted by Kristen Noel, the Lab Technician and resident microbiologist. “We’re bug farmers,” Kristen says with a confident look. “We do what nature does, only faster,” she says as she leads us outside.

Kristen explains how their role is to foster processes to break down the happiness naturally, rather than bombard it with chemicals, with the goal of returning clean water to the river and giving clean fertilizer to local farms. Kristen speaks at a rapid clip, knowledgeable and direct. She knows a lot about Concord’s happiness, that’s for sure.

We walk towards the Bio Towers, climb the steps and peer into the tops of these two huge two-story roofless concrete boxes. Kristen explains, “These towers are like giant Petri dishes.” Countless giant sprinkler heads spew grey-brown water that cascades down over rows and rows of cedar and plastic racks. “The water makes a biofilm over the planks – and the more it builds up, the more the slime helps break down the waste.” It’s noisy as the warm water casts a humid haze around us. “Once the water leaves here, it’s one step closer to being clean enough for the river.”

Then to the Aeration Basin, which looks like a massive Jacuzzi. The water is a frothy color of charcoal and slate, a dingy milkshake coated with a covering of fist-sized bubbles. “This is the Happy Tank for microorganisms,” Kristen yells over the bubbling brew, explaining how air promotes the growth of good critters, like nematodes, but I’m too distracted by the idea that air, water and bubbles create mist and maybe that’s not the rain I’m feeling against my skin.

In a hut near the river, Kristen samples the water, measuring its chlorine levels. She explains that this entire waste water process started after the Clean Water Act of 1972. “Before that law passed, waste water went right into the river,” she says, a look of puzzled defiance in her eyes.

Mark meets up with us, and we head to the two secondary clarifying pools to take core samples of their bottom “blankets.” While the huge rotating arm makes its slow sweep across the murky water, Mark tutors me in lagoon systems, parts per million and refers to himself as a “Used Food Engineer.” He mentions upstairs again, and he and Kristen laugh.

We’re standing on a gangplank over the water, only a metal guardrail separating me from years of therapy. Mark hoists a long plastic tube down into the water, hits bottom, raises the pole and empties the contents into a jug. We need a sample from the second pool, and Mark hands me the pole. I do what he did, feel for the pole to reach bottom and bring it up, but before I can empty it, the pole wavers. I look like a mime with an imaginary fish on my hook. I brace myself against the railing, gain control, and empty the cloudy water into the bucket. I try ignoring the drops of water that land on my face and neck.

After we test the pools’ contents back in the lab, Mark asks, “Are you ready to head upstairs?” Tom chimes in, “We’ll give you an honorary degree if you survive the Sludge Room!” Ok, now I’m worried about upstairs.

We’re outside again, and Mark reaches down towards a giant steel plate in the ground, behind the main building. “This is the Sludge Holding Tank.” I look down and take a massive whiff. Whatever hideous odors I’ve experienced in my life were like the sweet smell of a baby’s blanket compared to what I just inhaled. But on we walk. Mark’s determined to show me what upstairs is all about. I’m not sharing his enthusiasm.

“This is the Sludge Dewatering Process. We take the solids left in the tanks, send them here and turn them into Class A biosolids.” Mark opens the door and I’m hit with a stench most foul, my mind filling with words like putrid, fetid, rank, disgusting, and this was a huge mistake. He shows me how solids are mixed with polymers, squeezed dry, doused with lime, heated, pasteurized and dumped into a waiting truck. I move my head from side to side, seeking an air pocket of relief, but agitating the air only makes it worse. Mark points to the presses where the solids are churned and kneaded before they head to the ovens, and I want my mommy and nose plugs. Mark continues, but all I can think of is about the odors assaulting my soul. I’ve smelled joy before but never like this – this is serious joy, like a joy-filled laser penetrating my skull, embossing a permanent olfactory impression no amount of Febreze can ever erase.

We move down to the loading bay as a truck drives off with a load of freshly pasteurized biosolids, headed for a farm in Gilford. “Farmers use the biosolids on cornfields, but only for cattle corn. We could use it on corn that we eat, but the ‘ick’ factor is still too much for us to do that,” Mark explains. Right now my entire world is ick to the factor of 100. And the idea that cows eat biosolid-laced corn to make milk, and that we drink the milk from these cows is both repulsive and sensible to me. I’ll never think of cheese the same way again.

It’s good to know about places like this, and an occasional whiff of what goes on here is a nice reminder that there are people who take care of things we’d rather not talk about, and we’re lucky they do. And if there’s one thing I learned after spending a day with my new friends on Hall Street, it’s that everyone’s sunshine stinks, no matter what we think about ourselves.