Where does the drain go?

[highland512]

If you live in town or close to a town you are most likely hooked up to the municipal water and sewage system. Have you ever wondered to yourself while your washing those suds down the drain where does it go? Well it goes into the collection system then to your local water reclamation facility (waste water plant for us normal folks that call it what it is). Most of today's plants are a far cry to what they were even 10 years ago. The water enters the plant as raw sewage and in some plants when it leaves, it is safe for consumption (though I wouldn't). I have been working in and out of waste water and water plants for the better part of 12 years, it is what paid my way through collage and is now supporting my family. In my opinion its one of the most stable markets in construction, as long as the EPA is setting the rules for water treatment we will need these plants. Unlike roads, bridges, homes, and commercial spaces its very tricky to just "patch and repair" these plants. Pictures to follow. 

[highland512]

This is a aeration basin, it’s the work horse of waste water treatment plants (wwtp). This is were the process fluid is broke down. Huge blowers produce 30,000 scfm at 15-20 psi that is pumped into the basins and diffused into little bubbles the oxygenate the process. This is required to keep the biological process “alive”. Every wwtp is basically a big digester, tiny bugs are in these tanks eating the heavy organics. The water still looks like sewage and smells like sewage but is much cleaner than when it entered.



This is a clarifier. Once the water leaves the aeration basins it goes here. The solids leftover from digestion in the basins settles out and “clear” water is run out the top. The water now looks clear and doesn’t smell like sewage but has several more stages of treatment.

[highland512]

At this particular project we are adding 6 new aeration basins. This is going to require the removal of about 50,000 cubic yards of overburden and placement of about 20,000 cy of concrete slabs and walls.

[DeadNutz]

We are on a septic system here so I know where everything goes. Do those plants have problems with the flushable wipes that are clogging sewer systems nationwide? I used to have to visit those WWTP places. I was amazed at the number of tomato plants growing along the fence lines since tomato seeds are not digested. The gravel drives were covered with a variety of plastic items with the most numerous being tampon applicators.

[highland512]

Well this is strange, I can see the pictures on my cell through the app but not on the computer.

They are working now.

[highland512]

We are on a septic system here so I know where everything goes. Do those plants have problems with the flushable wipes that are clogging sewer systems nationwide? I used to have to visit those WWTP places. I was amazed at the number of tomato plants growing along the fence lines since tomato seeds are not digested. The gravel drives were covered with a variety of plastic items with the most numerous being tampon applicators.

Yes, "flushable" wipes is a huge problem for wwtp operators. New chopper pumps are having to be designed and installed just to chew these things up. There was actually a large lawsuit just filed by a bunch of cities against Proctor & Gamble to try to recover the cost of plant maintenance and emergency repairs caused by these things. The trouble is that the are so hard to catch, they flow right around the bar screens and rock traps. The first place they seem to collect is on pump screens and they eventually burn the pumps up.

https://www.live5news.com/2018/10/15/massive-collection-baby-wipes-clog-pipes-lowcountry-wastewater-treatment-plant/

[DeadNutz]

Well this is strange, I can see the pictures on my cell through the app but not on the computer.

I can see the 3 pics on my computer.

[mrchuck]

Our city has "grinder pumps", and these "female" wipes and pad get flushed down and clog up these pumps. The material is similar to "ballistic vests!
The sewer cover next to the street is about 30 feet down a ladder to get to the pump.
Periodically, the Company calls and asks us not flush the toilet, as they are down in the "hole"working on the grinder pump.
I call this a true shitty job!

[slip knot]

The grinder pumps just make a big mess into a thousand tiny mess's. Ballistic vest is a very good description, they never decompose. They just plug up other things down stream.

Highlands, good thing y'all are adding some capacity, that aeration basin in the picture is overloaded. 

[highland512]

Yes it’s running at full tilt but what you can’t see is the two basins we have out of service for retrofit work.

If you look at the article in the above link you can see the rags in strips or rolls. Looks like groundround, the grinders just spin the wipes into wads.

[slip knot]

 put a fine screen in @5yrs ago. Cut the plugging issues in the pumps but we're seeing @20yrd of trash collected each month. 

[bmwrd0]

When I was in trade school to be a stationary engineer, wastewater maintenance was sort of the other half of the program. Mostly chemical testing vs. boiler maintenance.

[highland512]

put a fine screen in @5yrs ago. Cut the plugging issues in the pumps but we're seeing @20yrd of trash collected each month. 

Has a nice aroma in July doesn’t it 🤢

This particular plant runs an incinerator that process all solids and sludge which cut their dumpsters rent.

Nothing in these plants can bet the smell that comes off the surge tanks where the septage/septic haulers unload. You can smell it even where you have a head cold.

[slip knot]

porta can haulers are the worst.


We belt filter press all the sludges and truck them to a compost facility @5mile away. so the only real smell is the roll off box and it just stinks when we uncover it to haul it, but then it stinks up the whole place, the smell follows the truck.  The screenings are too high on hydrocarbons so it cant be taken to the local landfill and has to be trucked up around Houston. I pity the people stuck in traffic around that rolloff.

[fatfillup]

I dealt with a company called Archer Western building an additional plant at a site in Baltimore.  Was almost a billion dollar project of which they had $600 million of.  Massive project with all kinds of machines doing the work.  Had many customers on site also doing trucking and concrete pumping. 

Mangers and foreman changed pretty regularly.  Don't think the project went smoothly.  Don't know if they money or not.