Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / Dec. 23, 1982, edition 1 / Page 11
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SECTION II ewd - journal Tin RSI> AN UK LMUI K 1!> Zitzman ( center ) confers with pre-treatment plant engineer on discharge readings from Faberge's new SI 50,000 facility. Faberge Meeting Role As Good Local Citizen By Warren Johnston After several million dollars and a lot of hard work, the Faberge plant here has assured its position as being one of the county's best industrial citizens. The plant has recently com pleted construction of a new $150,000 sewage discharge pre treatment plant and could be recognized for its efforts in February with a Governor's Ex cellence Award for waste manage ment. Working quietly during the last 12 months, Faberge has also com pleted over $2 million in plant ex pansion and improvement projects with more than $350,000 of those funds going to local vendors. Faberge now employs 500 workers, 85% of whom are Hoke County residents, and will have an annual payroll this year of $4.7 million. In addition, more than 100 workers, primarily students, are hired on a parttime basis throughout the year. Company officials are happy with the Raeford plant and see a long relationship with the com munity here, Corporate Vice President of Manufacturing August A. Zitzman said Monday. "We're pleased with our presents in Raeford. Our associa tion with the city and county has been very very good," Zitzman said. "We're looking foward to our future in Raeford," he added. Under the gun from state health officials and the City of Raeford, Faberge went beyond what was re quired by a new city ordinance in making improvements to its sewage pre-treatment system. The firm beefed up the pre treatment plant and has reduced its discharge into the city system from 40,000 to 14,000 gallons per day. "Faberge recognized its obliga tion to conform to the ordinance as to limits of industrial waste discharge. We decided at this time that a great amount of water discharge would obviously dilute any levels of BOD, COD, etc. (pollutants), but would also pre sent the municipality with a great burden of treating gallons of discharge rather than pounds of in dustrial waste," Zitzman said. Faberge now discharges into the Raeford treatment plant amounts less than 1% of the facility's total capacity, he added. Although the firm only discharges 14,000 gallons per day, Faberge constructed a treatment facility with the capacity to handle over 30,000 gallons per day. There are flaws in the city or dinance, and Zitzman believes that the language in the law should be changed. "We at Faberge believe it is im portant that any ordinance written by any municipality should stress very clearly that hydraulic loading may be detrimental to many treat ment plants in operation. We believe that organic loading would be more suitable for any municipality to handle. According to the city's present ordinance, levels of effluent pollutants should be reduced to a precentage of the total volumn discharged. Under the present city law, plants could dilute the pollutant percentage by increasing the volumn of water in the discharge. Well water which does not come from the city system could be used to reduce the percentage and would increase the city's volumn of waste to treat. Although improvements have been made in the municipal plant, Raeford is still under a moratorium not to add any in dustrial users to the system. Improvements by Faberge and by other industries should help br ing the city's discharge into Rock fish Creek into compliance with federal and state standards. In addition to its pre-treatment improvements, Faberge also con tributes heavily to the city and county tax coffers. During 1981, Faberge paid $1 53,000 in municipal taxes and over $258,000 to Hoke County. The firm also sponsors an an nual Ladies Golf Tournament, which raised more than $18,000 last July for Camp Easter In The Pines. The event is conducted under the auspices of the National Easter Seal Foundation and aids han dicapped children who attend the Southern Pines camp. Plans are to enlarge the tourna ment in 1983, and Zitzman hopes the changes will increase the amount of money earned for the camp. Faberge also contributes to the local economy by maintaining a philosophy of buying as many pro ducts as possible from Hoke Coun ty vendors. Many of the products which are not purchased locally are shipped to the plant by the Aberdeen Rockfish Railroad. The plant here ships an average of 500,000 pounds of products per day by truck and has days when shipments exceed 1.5 million pounds. One division of the Raeford plant ships the products it pro duces to countries all over the world. Those products are shipped out of Wilmington and Charleston. "We're delighted we are here," Zitzman added. Beakers show difference in effluent treated by the Faberge sewage plant. The beaker on the right contains discharge material that has just entered the system. The beaker on the left shows the effluent ready to be placed in the city system. 4e st Faberge employees cooking at plant Monday. i
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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Dec. 23, 1982, edition 1
11
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