Hey Buddy, have you seen my teeth? No? What about my wedding ring?

Those are among the questions asked of wastewater treatment employees at Bowling Green Municipal Utilities where 8 million gallons of wastewater flow in every day through two main lines serving Bowling Green and parts of Warren County – one line is 36 inches and the other is 42 inches. 

Wastewater employees haven’t found any jewelry, but someone once found a $100 bill, cleaned it with bleach and went home $100 richer that day, the kind of find that legends are made of.

Other finds aren’t nearly as exciting. 

“We’ve found money, teeth, plants,” treatment plant supervisor Doug Kimbler said. “We’ve actually rescued plants.”

Kimbler is sure he personally would not want back any denture that made its way to the treatment facility, but people have called and asked after an accidental bathroom flush sends grandpa’s teeth on a journey through the pipes that even the most potent Polident couldn’t likely refresh.

Wastewater employees have also found their fair share of goldfish laid to rest in the watery graves of family toilet bowls. And all those socks and undergarments that go missing after being placed into the washing machine, yep, those eventually end up at the wastewater facility on Preston Street near the banks of the Barren River.

“We’ve had a lot of calls on rings,” said Heather Stringfield, chief operator of the wastewater treatment plant. But to date, none of the workers have found any diamonds in the muck.

The treatment facility is manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Every drop of fluid or any solids that are flushed or go down any tub or sink drain traverse smaller lines making their way to the two main lines.

“That’s the starting point,” Kimbler said.

Wastewater is first pumped into the facility into a large machine that looks like a giant cheese grater. It’s a filter where solids are strained and ground. If a gold necklace did happen to make it this far, it would likely be ground to a pulp. Anything larger than 3 millimeters is strained out and moved into a dumpster with other solids to be taken to a landfill. Silt that manages to get into the system is also filtered out of the wastewater and sent to the landfill. BGMU trucks 150-250 tons of solid waste to a landfill annually.

Work at the treatment facility is not for the soul with a delicate olfactory system, but for the people who do work there, they take the job seriously because the health and well-being of the community and the environment depend on it. Without wastewater treatment there are myriad illnesses that can cause loss of life.

“If the water goes down, the town gets thirsty in a hurry,” Kimbler said. “If we shut down, it’s sickness and disease. …

“We look at ourselves as environmental stewards,” Kimbler said. “We take the resource from the water plant and let you use it. We bring it back to the wastewater plant and put it back in the river 10 to 100 times cleaner.”

After the solids are drained, the water is sent to one of four massive basins called sequencing batch reactors. They hold 3 million gallons of water. It’s in those basins that any solids that managed to get through the system will rise to the top. On a recent afternoon, hundreds of condom bases that look like rubber bands were floating on the top of one of the basins. The amount of condoms found in the wastewater increases when school is in session at Western Kentucky University, Kimbler said.

Also mixed in were hundreds of single-serving empty drink mix packets, a rubber glove and thousands of bits of personal care wipes – the bane of all wastewater treatment plants. Personal care wipes clog sewage systems. They can cost homeowners thousands of dollars if they plug up a sewer line on personal property, and when wipes are combined with cooking grease they form a dam that can completely stop the flow of liquids.

There are only three Ps that should go into the sewer system — pee, poop and toilet paper.

“If it didn’t come from you, don’t put it in there,” Kimbler said. “A toilet is not a trash can.”

Personal care wipes should never be flushed, even if they claim to be flushable. Many are made of plastic material that does not break down.

After the sewage water reaches a basin it is aerated and bacteria eat the fecal matter. Then the water is allowed to settle so any solids that have managed to make it through the screening process can float to the top. The clean water is decanted and then disinfected with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. Through that disinfectant process water is aerated again and then released back into Barren River cleaner than it was before the river water was taken out at the water plant. Solids that get to the basins are eventually shoveled out and trucked to a landfill.

“When we start discharging, the fish come around because there is extra oxygen in the water,” Kimbler said. “It’s like a water park for fish.”

There is a laboratory on site where the water being discharged is checked every day to make sure that it meets all of the federal clean water standards. BGMU has to obtain discharge permits every five years that specify the allowable pollutant levels, which are usually tightened with each new permit issued. BGMU also tests the water coming into the facility so that wastewater treatment professionals know what is in it.

One of the upcoming issues that BGMU is anticipating dealing with in the wastewater is microconstituents such as drugs in the water. The No. 1 microconstituent in wastewater is caffeine. Large cities are already faced with detectable amounts of antidepressants and painkillers in the wastewater because anything that passes through human urine eventually is something that wastewater professionals have to find a way to remove.

“We have not detected it as of yet,” Kimbler said. 

There has always been estrogen and testosterone in the water because those are naturally occurring hormones. 

“We’re just now able to get the resolution on our equipment to that minute level,” he said.

In addition to homes, the plant also cleans industrial wastewater. All significant users such as manufacturing facilities have to obtain discharge permits from BGMU. BGMU wastewater professionals conduct site visits to these facilities twice a month and use their lab analysis to check for compliance.

The treatment plant also sends out its own water samples to outside laboratories. 

Wastewater technology is a constantly changing field with new equipment and new treatment techniques being continually introduced. Back in the 1920s a science magazine ran an article on the “natural” sewage system in Bowling Green in which homeowners were simply told to dig until they hit a cave and use the cave as a sewage pipe. Much has changed in the field since the 1920s.

Treatment plant operators are required to obtain training and undergo ongoing continuing education along with attending monthly safety classes. They are required to pass certification exams.

“Bacteria doesn’t have a taste. That’s why the lab is there,” Kimbler said.

— Follow Assistant City Editor Deborah Highland on Twitter @BGDNCrimebeat or visit bgdailynews.com.