Centralia Washington’s Jefferson Street pump station handles the in-flow from six smaller stations. By 2007, the original dry pit submersibles were experiencing plugging due to disposable wipes mixing with rags and hair and required disassembly and cleaning twice weekly. More than forty of these plugs occurred at night and contributed to a large increase in overtime expenses.

In the fall of ‘07 Greg Boone, who is responsible for Centralia’s 25 lift stations, consulted with Mike Hoskison of PumpTech on potential solutions. Mike suggested that Vaughan Chopper pumps could eliminate the problem and set up a demonstration at the Vaughan factory for Greg and several of his coworkers. The demonstration used a chopper to pump wastewater that consisted of nylon rope, rags, T-shirts, a box of wipes, wood chips and, believe it or not, a Thanksgiving turkey! There was no plugging and Greg was convinced that a chopper would, indeed, solve Centralia’s problem.

Greg Boone and Greg Fischer (Chehalis) during installation of the Jefferson Street Pumps.

In mid November of ‘07 the city ordered two Vaughan pedestal mounted choppers and they were installed in February of ‘08. After three years of operation, neither chopper has plugged.

In addition to the Jefferson Street Station, Centralia has replaced the pumps in five other aging and troublesome lift stations with Vaughan Choppers. In late 2008 a 10 HP submersible chopper was installed at the Reynolds Street pump station. The photo below shows the pumps that were installed in the Borst Park pump station in November of 2009. These are 30 HP units rated at 1100 GPM. This year the Military Road, Scammon Creek and High Street lift stations were upgraded to Vaughan Choppers. To date none of the six stations have plugged. Additionally, five other stations have been quoted and are in the review and budgeting process.

One of the choppers after installation.

With six Vaughan retro’s installed and five more in progress, you can see why we refer to Centralia as “Chopperitaville”.

Mike Hoskison covers the municipal market for PumpTech in Lewis, Pacific, Pierce, Thurston, Grays Harbor and Mason counties. He can be reached at mhoskison@PumpTechnw.com.