Kalamazoo wastewater treatment plant On October 22, 2011, a group of students from the class of CHEG 2610 visited the Kalamazoo Water Reclamation Plant (KWRP) to learn more about the process to treat wastewater around the Kalamazoo area. To clean up the water, the KWRP used the Activated Sludge, which is a biological treatment technique in which a mixture of wastewater and biological sludge (microorganisms) is agitated and aerated. The Kalamazoo wastewater treatment plant has been renewed since February 1955 until 2003.

At the begging, it started just to provide a treatment to an average wastewater flow of 12. 0 million gallons per day but nowadays it provides treatment to approximately 28 million gallons per day. Approximately half of this flow comes from significant industrial users such as large manufacturers and hospitals. The balance of the flow comes from residential customers, schools, and other industries. This paper will describe the process that the Kalamazoo Water Reclamation Plant uses to make wastewater drinkable or usable in the environment.

Water Treatment Process We were received by ————————- who gave us an hour presentation long describing the history of KWRP and the process used to clean up the water. Most of the information presented was similar to the one in page 460 to 464 of the Introduction to Environmental Engineering book. After the presentation ended, each of us was required to wear goggle and helmet protection for the tour around the KWRP. The tour began in the administration building where computer systems are located to monitor the process within the plant.

The first station that we visited was the Raw Wastewater Pump Station, all the industries and municipal wastewater flow in this station first. This station is used to remove debris from the wastewater. We observed one sample of wastewater received in this plant; disagreeable odor and a brown color was the characteristic of this water, according to the tour guide, the wastewater’s characteristics most of the time is different depending where it comes from. From the Raw Wastewater Pump station, the wastewater is pumped to the Primary Treatment Facilities.

The Primary Treatment Facilities is the first stage of wastewater treatment. This consists in two processes, grit removal and sedimentation. In the first process, grit is removed as the water flow through two grit thanks. The heavy grit particles settle to the bottom of the tank. Solid are not removed with the grit this is the reason to use a second process which is sedimentation, in this process solids are removed by sludge pump. In sedimentation, chemicals are added to enhance phosphorus and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD).

The second station is the Secondary Treatment with Powered Activated Carbon, the water from the primary treatment flows to the secondary treatment facility. This process removes dissolve and divided imputes from the water. It is a biological treatment since it utilizes millions of microorganisms to treat the water. The biological treatment is really complicated because of this the KWRP uses engineering elements to make the process more complete. Trough the tour we observes R. S.

A which is the mass of sludge bug from the bottom of the secondary thank coming back in hungry and ready to eat again so the KWRP add powered activated (PAC) carbon and bacteria to protect the sludge from toxic waste. The combination of activated carbon and bacteria creates slurry. This slurry is an aerated in a large rectangular basin called Aeration Tanks which is the next station to treat the wastewater. Final Sedimentation Tanks are used to separate the clean water from the sludge at the bottom in order for this process to be completed it has to go to the secondary clarifier.

After that, the final process will be the Tertiary Treatment which consists of ten gravity sand filter. The filtered clean water is chemically disinfected using chlorine to destroy diseases causing organism. Following disinfection, the flow is again aerated to ensure that the plant effluent has sufficient dissolved oxygen and dechlorinated prior to discharge to the Kalamazoo River. We all observed and smell sample water of the wastewater that was successfully treated. This sample looked better and different than the one presented first, it didn’t have any odor or color because activated carbon was added on it.

In conclusion, the main reason for this trip was to learn more about wastewater treatment. We went to the Kalamazoo Water Reclamation Plant (KWRP) and learned and saw how the process works. The KWRP receives approximately 28 gallons of wastewater per day. To clean the wastewater, it uses the Activated Sludge system which is divided into the Raw Wastewater Pump Station; the Primary Treatment Facilities; the Secondary Treatment with Powered Activated Carbon; Aeration Tanks; Final Sedimentation Tanks; and Tertiary Treatment.