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On this tour we learned that the purpose of this plant (which was built in 1928) is to take all of the used water and waste from the municipal sewage lines from Akron and the surrounding suburbs and run it through a cleaning process to remove the harmful bacteria, chemicals, particles and other pollutants, that come from our owlets, baths, washing machines, garbage disposals, sinks, drains, runoff from the streets and groundwater. The plant manages to do this by running the water through a series of operations, prior to releasing it back into the environment.
The WAP (water pollution control plant) of Akron usually receives about 70-75 million gallons of water to treat a day. On days that it rains, over 100 million gallons of water is collected, because of the ‘combined’ sewers of the water runoff, through a pipe that is 110 inches in diameter. Though other wastewater treatment plants built heir sewers separate from each other, Akron decided to build a combined sewer system because it was more cost effective.
Once the waste water arrives at the treatment plant through many miles of sewage lines, it enters it’s first process called ‘initial screening which is used to keep material waste such as, diapers, dentures, cloth and plastic from entering the raw waste water area. After all the large waste and grit is screened and disposed of, the water is left with only about 1% of pollutants, which is treated with various techniques, including an aerobic process and followed by the use of chemicals, such as chlorine and bleach. The remaining wastewater is pumped to a basin or holding tank for additional cleaning.
The basins typically slow the flow of the water down to la feet a second, which then allows small particles contained in the wastewater to settle to the bottom of the basin. The particle residue is scraped from the basin, and the top of the waste water, which consists mostly of grease, is skimmed, while also removing the scum and particles that have floated to the top, by pushing it all into a nearby pipe. Once filtered for material waste, small particles and scum, wastewater is pumped o the Horn Valves, which are 6 sets of liquor tanks.
The reason for its name and the technique of “mixed liquor” it uses is based off of a brewing technique, which is used to further purify the water. While in this basin, the wastewater is infiltrated with a large amount of oxygen and good bacteria that feed on any remaining harmful organic matter. And monitoring the ratio of good bacteria, harmful bacteria and oxygen can increase the growth of helpful microorganisms, which is considered an ‘aerobic process’. This basically merman that this tank uses the interconnections of agrarianism’s Othello remove announcements that require oxygen to breathe.
While this method is in process, the water is pumped into an additional “settling” basin to separate the sludge, so the treated wastewater can leave and flow to a different tank for an additional disinfection. Tater ten water leaves ten liquor tanks, It sits Tort 6 noirs teen mows Into a large tank, which uses a ‘Gravity Belt Thickener’ to collect any extra grease, etc. , prior to its last stage of the ‘Final Clarifier’. During this process, the much cleaner water is then disinfected with a chemical called ‘Sodium Hypochlorite’- basically a very strong hellion- that is used to kill pathogenic organisms.
And lastly another chemical is used called ‘Sodium Bushfire’ which dilutes the chlorine in the water, before it all is returned back to the environment. I would say having a wastewater pollution control plant in our city is very beneficial to our health and to the environment. This plant may use up to a thousand gallons of diesel a day and spends a quarter of a million dollars on their electric bill to operate a plant that continuously runs for 24 hours a day, but in the long run considering all the harmful pollutants the water incurs, it pays off.
Firstly, the plant has found ways to recycle the waste and reusing it as a byproduct by taking the sludge and generating it into methane gas to produce about 335 kilowatts of electricity to help conserve the extreme amount of energy it uses. The wastewater also contains pathogens (disease organisms), nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, solids, chemicals from cleaners and disinfectants and even many hazardous substances that are harmful, therefore having this plant around not only helps recycle the water and nutrients but also protects our health and the environments health.