Do you ever stop and think about where the water goes after you pull the drain plug or flush a toilet? If you are like most people, you don’t give it a second thought. As long as it goes away is all that matters. Well, let me give you a brief description of what happens after the flush. It goes out of sight, down a pipe from your house to the wastewater collection system main. From there it will pass through a series of pipes and manholes until it reaches a piece of equipment you make use of every day and didn’t know it existed.
Meet the Vulcan step screen, shown here as it was being installed earlier this year at a cost of $210,000. I would show you a picture of it in action but for those with weak stomachs, you might not like me for that. After the water left your house and goes on the journey through the system this is the first piece of equipment it will encounter.
What does it do, you ask? Well, let me tell you the dirty job it has. This machinery sits in the channel that accepts all the wastewater from the system. Its job is to remove all the non-organics and solids that are found in wastewater. Anything that does not dissolve, we will find in the Vulcan. Those disposable wipes that we have asked you not to flush will be removed by this piece of equipment and put into a dumpster after going through a squeeze press to remove all the water. The reason we ask you not to flush those wipes is that they are usually heavier than other material and will not flow through the system efficiently and create backups. We have even found money! Thanks for the tip!
The Vulcan is on duty 24/7 acting as a guard to the wastewater plant, intecepting and removing anything that should not go into the process. By keeping rags, wipes and other things out of the basin system lets the air that is used in the process to flow freely and oxygenate the biological “bugs” so they can do their job. So, the next time you send something down the drain, think to yourself, “would the Vulcan be happy with this in the system?”.
If you would like to see the Vulcan in action or learn more about the wastewater plant, contact me here at the Town and we would be more than happy to take you on a tour of the plant. Really it does not smell that bad, or maybe in my nearly 20 years in the business, I have just gotten used to it. -Public Works Director Trey Fonner
For tours reach out to Trey@Townofsilt.org
*Sorry, nose plugs not included.
Silt Photography Contest a Hit!
The Town of Silt, in partnership with the Glenwood Post Independent and Align Multimedia of Rifle, recently sponsored a photography contest to bring awareness and proper acclaim to our little town. The Simply Irresistible Little Town (SILT) Discover Silt photo contest attracted 47 photo entries and with over 200 votes cast.
And the winners were………..(drum roll, please!)…………
1st place - Taylor Smith, 2nd place - Penny Denny and 3rd place - Cindy Davis. (Photos shown in order of place)
Great prize packs were provided by our local sponsors The Whimsical Wagon, Dusty Wagon Car Wash and Wild Coffee Roasters.
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The purpose of the Town’s association with Align Multimedia is to establish a marketing foundation for the Town, highlight why Silt is a great place to Live, Do Business, & Visit, market to the regional visitor and local residents, bring awareness to the newly launched DiscoverSiltColorado.com website, develop a consistent and engaging social media presence that highlights various aspects of town, from supporting local businesses to beautiful imagery of the area, build a Town of Silt multimedia library by capturing video/drone/photo assets throughout the year to use in social media, website, general marketing, and to create a process for evaluating analytics and data to measure performance on website traffic, social media, and digital ad campaigns.
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One of the most important parts of the effort is to create a year-long Shop Local campaign by featuring different businesses each month on DiscoverSilt.com, eNewsletters, social media posts, and paid ads throughout the year.
Part of the “Shop Local” campaign is to re-emphasize the oversized role on-line shopping plays in Silt’s sales tax revenue. Shop at our wonderful local merchants, but if what you’re looking for isn’t available in Silt, go ahead and buy it on-line…….and Silt will collect the sales tax!
For more information go to www.DiscoverSiltColorado.com.
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53rd Silt Heyday 2023 a Success!
The Silt Heyday Committee would like to thank all the contributors that helped to make the 53rd Silt Heyday a success. This includes ALL those who donated financial support, door prizes, and services. Because of you, we were able to provide our Home Town Celebration at Veterans Park in Silt and provide a venue for fundraising for our own Silt Historical Society and Silt Historical Park.
We want to give special thanks to our Gold Sponsors, The Town of Silt & Police Department, Down Valley Septic, High Frequency Living, Mountain Waste & Recycling, Valley View Hospital-Silt Family Practice, Waste Management, Mountain Waste & Recycling, The Whimsical Wagon; our Platinum Sponsors Alpine Bank, Briscoe & Howe Accounting Services, Defiance Rafting & Rislende Events, Elmer Glass, Native American Crane Service, Timberline Pool & Spa.
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The other sponsors are too numerous to mention, but we appreciate all that they did this year to make Heyday successful, whether they provided financial support or in-kind donations.
We wish to thank all the people that donated their time for Silt Heyday, including our Parade entrants, our Parade Judges; our Grand Marshals- the Silt Police Department who raised our Park flag; Gage Donelson who sang our National Anthem, our Booth providers; local Support including the Silt Police Department and the security volunteers, Silt Historical Society friends in the Kitchen & in the beer booth,
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the Town of Silt employees, and all of the others that helped as we celebrated “Cheers to 40 Years” with the Silt Historical Society.Thanks to our sound providers Precise Decibels and our bands, the Colorado Currys, Feeding Giants, and Louie and the Lizards.
If we forgot anyone it is not intentional, and we thank you too, it was difficult to keep track of all the work going on.
Without all of this support, we could not have done it.
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Silt Heyday Committee – Justin Brintnall, Levy Burris, Michael Clark, Chris Classen, Tela Forehand, Amanda Fulmer, Sheila McIntyre, Joan Nestor, Kim Price, Sydney Reynolds, Robin Robinson, Hope Stewart, Peggy Swank and Carly Webbick |
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DiscoverSiltColorado.com and other Silt Tidbits!
*Don't forget to check out DiscoverSiltColorado.com!
*We encourage you to pay your bill online through Xpress Bill Pay at www.xpressbillpay.com
*The Town of Silt has many ways to communicate with residents, including our electronic town sign on 9th Street, the Public Access TV Channel 10, our Facebook page, emailed newsletters, the posting board outside of Town Hall, a new suggestion box inside Town Hall, and TextMyGov.
* You can sign up for TextMyGov and the newsletters on our website: www.TownOfSilt.org.
* Irrigation season is just about over! Please refer to www.TownofSilt.org/irrigation_schedule for more information and guidelines. Irrigation will be shut off October 1st.
* Be sure to winterize your irrigation systems! * DMV will be in Silt on September 20th from 9-4pm.
* Town Hall will be closed 9/4 in observance of Labor Day.
* Get your basketball registrations in – registration close date is 10/2.
* October 16-21 – Silt clean up 8am to 4pm (town shop 612 N 7th st)
* October 31 – Main St Trick or Treat. Get your costumes ready!
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