BRA operator turning wastewater pristine

Holding two beakers full of water side by side, Daniel Trigo is immensely proud his visitors can’t tell which liquid came from the faucet and which is the result of a wastewater treatment plant.

So clean is the water after it’s cycled through the Sugar Land North Wastewater Treatment Plant that its return to a nearby creek is perfectly safe for all the aquatic life that lives there and resides in the Brazos River where the creek eventually flows.

“I couldn’t do it without all the people that report to me being as good as they are,” said Trigo, a chief plant operator for the Brazos River Authority. “They’ve all stepped up a lot, taken all my training and retraining, and become really good at what they do. They do a really good job, and that’s what makes me successful.”

Trigo oversees operations at four wastewater plants managed by the BRA and owned by the city of Sugar Land: Sugar Land North, Sugar Land South, New Territory, and Greatwood. He’s also over operations at the Clute-Richwood Wastewater Treatment Plant, which the BRA operates, in southern Brazoria County.

“I like to let the employees who report to me know I’m always here for them and available to help them through their problems,” said Trigo as he discussed overseeing five different locations - one of which is an hour away. “If I can teach them as much as I can, it builds their confidence in handling issues in the future.”

Wastewater is the collective runoff of modern life - used water and wastes disposed of through plumbing fixtures from homes, industries, and commercial establishments. Characteristics of wastewater change regularly, so while part of the process is automated, it takes constant monitoring to maintain the correct levels to clean the water properly. When wastewater passes through a sewage plant, it undergoes a gauntlet of rigorous treatments within the sewage plant’s complex machinery.

As part of its stewardship of clean water, the BRA currently operates and maintains nine wastewater treatment plants within the Brazos River Basin. These facilities treat millions of gallons of wastewater through various biological, chemical, and physical means to meet state and federal standards before returning the cleaned water to area streams or rivers.

The BRA has been involved in treating wastewater since the 1970s. The BRA built the Sugar Land North Wastewater Treatment Plant in 1975, and continued operations even after the City of Sugar Land took over ownership in 2005.

Trigo’s journey with the BRA and its wastewater treatment plants began in May 2013 when he was hired as a senior plant operator at the Sugar Land South plant. By 2014, he was the chief plant operator for the two plants owned by Sugar Land at that time.

In October 2018, the BRA took over operation, maintenance, and management of two plants newly annexed by the City of Sugar Land: Greatwood and New Territory. Trigo said he was heavily involved in the process of transforming the two additions to meet the standards of quality of the other plants.

“The two new plants weren’t in great shape when the City acquired them,” he said. “A lot of cities and companies have plants that aren’t always their best as they have one operator, and they have so much on their plate they don’t have time to do it all. The plants needed some TLC, and the city of Sugar Land agreed to make the improvements.”

“For a few years, I was going around and finding and fixing the problems as they arose at the different facilities we have here,” Trigo said. “I was acting as a lead operator, and I trained other operators, then I would move on to the other plant and continue to check on them.”

In 2022, a BRA plant supervisor position opened at the Clute-Richmond Wastewater Treatment Plant, and Trigo threw in his hat and was hired. Two years later, BRA supervisors encouraged Trigo to apply for the chief plant operator position at all five plants, and he’s been there ever since.

“I was hesitant on taking this position as I was pretty comfortable in Clute,” he said. “But I knew they needed me to do this.”

Navigating the complexities of five distinct plants, each with its own history, operational style, and geographical footprint, is a big challenge in overseeing them, he said.

Trigo discovered that to be effective, one couldn’t just be rooted in technical mastery, but needed to build strong relationships with each person who breathed life into each plant.

“Everyone has their own backgrounds. Everyone goes home to their own life. We have to have a commonality to come together to run these facilities, and they have to trust me, and I have to be able to trust them,” Trigo said of his 10 employees. “That’s a big part of being successful in this.”

The overall process of a wastewater treatment plant is largely the same. But each plant is a little different. One plant may need to add more air to an aeration basin, and it’s best done by opening a valve, he said. While another plant more easily adds air to the process of treatment by adjusting the blowers.

“They all have their little quirks,” Trigo said. “Every plant has its own little thing. I’ve run all these plants by myself before, so I have the background knowledge to tell them, ‘Oh, when that happens, we have to do this.’ Or ‘When that happens, this is what we did in the past.’ It’s not a cookie-cutter process. There’s so much different equipment and multiple ways to get past an individual failure or an individual problem. So, it’s not always set in stone.”

Trigo said he’s invested in empowering his operators, constantly training and retraining to set them up for continued success.

“As problems arise, we work through them,” he said. “A lot of plants have redundancies in them. Sometimes the answer isn’t simple, and we have to think outside the box.”

Trigo didn’t grow up with plans to oversee wastewater treatment plants or even to work for the Brazos River Authority. He admits to feeling a little lost after graduating from Santa Fe High School and then going to College of the Mainland for general studies.

He eventually found his way to working in a fabrication shop where his father worked, where they transformed a sheet of metal into a tank. Little did he know, he was about to learn some big lessons.

“My dad has an 8th-grade education. I never thought he was the smartest tool in the shed. I was quickly proven wrong working beside him,” Trigo said. “Coming out of community college, I go work for him. We’re looking at this big ol’ tank, and he runs a measuring tape around it. I’m holding the dummy end of the tape, the side without readings, and I realize he’s doing geometry. He can hardly work because people are stopping him to ask him how to do this or how to do that. He had so much knowledge. From analyzing blueprints to constructing a tank to performing high-level math, I’m sitting here looking at him, he’s doing all this work. It was really eye-opening for me to be there. I was really impressed.”

Trigo later moved on to become an operator in training for the city of Pearland’s wastewater treatment plant. He started from the bottom, cutting grass and painting. Within three years, he was a supervisor. Trigo attributes his quick rise to his adaptability and his willingness to embrace the ever-changing technology.

Recognizing the need for greater professional fulfillment and a more balanced lifestyle, Trigo applied to the BRA.

“With this organization, I have the needed support from upper management that helps me a lot to build and have a good team,” Trigo said. “I wouldn’t be successful without this team, and the support from upper management helps tremendously.”

When he’s not working, Trigo spends time with his wife of 16 years, Jennifer (“She’s a patient woman to put up with me.”), and his son and three daughters. His home in Santa Fe is conveniently located halfway between Clute and Sugar Land.

Trigo enjoys hunting and golf. But he’s more often trading his nine-iron with a fishing rod, with his son or father coaxing speckled trout and redfish from the depths of Halls Bayou, a tributary of Chocolate Bayou.