People in Your Neighborhood: Visiting the Waste Water Treatment Plant

What happens when the water drains into the sink or when the toilet flushes? It goes down the sewer pipes to the Waste Water Treatment Plant.

Brandon Dunford, operator at Milton Waste Water Treatment Plant

Visiting the City of Milton’s Waste Water Treatment Plant located at 6903 Municipal Drive in downtown Milton isn’t typically on the top of a person’s list of places to see in the city. However, the operators who keep the plant working smoothly say that although its a tough job, they take a lot of pride in their work.

Sampling the water after it’s processed for cleaning happens every day at the Waste Water Treatment Plant. Everything has to be perfect.

“This job is a public service,” said Brandon Dunford, operator at the plant. He’s new to the job, having only begun working about 6 months ago.

“The important part of the service is to build a healthy public in a different way. It’s not like firefighting or the police department. We’re disease fighters,” said Dunford.

Jesse Medley, operator 3 at Milton Wastewater Treatment Plant takes his job seriously. “I operate the plant and keep it running where people can live healthy lives in the city,” he said.

Jesse Medley, plant operator level 3, said to work at the plant you have to be a ‘jack-of-all-trades.’ “It’s an important job and we do it for the greater good–environmentally and for humanity–water is a part of life.”

Medley said his favorite part of the job is the fact it’s different every day. “When you’re sampling the water, everything has to be perfect to meet Department of Environmental Protection standards. We make sure everything is accurate. I get to learn new things. Chemistry, biology, electronics, mechanics…it’s all part of this job.”

“We’re the backbone of society. We’ve come a long way from throwing out chamber pots into the street. Without us, the environment would be a mess,” said Medley.

The plant is an important part of the city with 8 operators who work two 8 hour shifts, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. days and 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on nights. In addition to the Milton plant, they operate the Sundial of Milton wastewater plant. The Milton plant is in operation 16 hours per day, 7 days per week.