South Charleston is a city in West Virginia located just to the west of Charleston.

The City of South Charleston is in Kanawha County with a population of 13,639 at the 2020 census. The Kanawha River runs through the city along with Interstate 64, U.S. Route 119, and State Route 60.

It has a variety of attractions including the Criel Mound, Shoney’s Big Boy Museum, Sky Zone Trampoline Park, Little Creek Park, Little Creek Golf Course, Joplin Park, Ellis Field, the Rock Sports Complex, Little Creek Bike Trailhead, and Oakes Field.

DOW Chemical operations is a large chemical manufacturing plant in South Charleston, West Virginia.

Union Carbide Corporation, a subsidiary of DOW Chemical, required a pump station as part of a groundwater containment and remediation system. The plant consists of three separate facilities: the South Charleston Manufacturing Site, Technology Park, and guest operations.

The West Virginia Operations for DOW creates some of the industry’s most advanced process and catalyst technologies, and operates some of the most cost-efficient, large-scale production facilities in the world.

Romtec Utilities was contacted to design, manufacture, and supply the components needed for the pump station.
Throughout this project Romtec Utilities worked closely with CH2M & Jacobs, the site engineer, to design the pump system according to the site-specific pumping requirements needed for this application.

The pump station’s design was completed using the information provided by CH2M and purchased from us directly by DOW Chemical.

The pump station handles low flows of stormwater against medium head conditions.

Ebara submersible 2hp pumps are used in this pumping application with a variable frequency drive or VFD to ease inflow current during pump starts. This system design is unique and discharges vertically from the wet well, yet submersible pumps are the best fit in this application.

Stormwater levels are detected using a pressure transducer as the primary level sensing device and mechanical floats provide redundant protection in case of failure or inaccurate measurements. Electrical controls are installed inside a NEMA 4X stainless steel enclosure and are configured for this duplex pumping application with a variable frequency drive.

An onsite construction advisor was sent to the job site to answer questions about the pump station installation. Once all structural components were installed, Romtec Utilities provided a start-up technician to commission the system and provide testing and training services for the owners and operators.

The groundwater remediation system features a 5′ diameter wet well, 3″ discharge piping, and Ebara 50DVFMU submersible pumps. The stormwater runoff pump system can pump up to 60 gallons per minute with a total dynamic head of 25’.