May 28: Sewer Treatment Plant

So today we went to the Albany County Sewer District water treatment plant. This is the day that most of the class was dreading, however, it didn't bother me because my uncle works at the Kingston sewer treatment plant. I have never seen the inside though, so this was a new experience for me.  This is a medium sized treatment plant, this means that about 23,000,000 gallons of water go through the plant every day. I couldn't even imagine how much a large treatment plant filters every day. I thought it was impressive that the state regulations for how purified the water has to be is 90%, and the Albany County sewer district purifies their water 95%. Craig, our guide, said he would still not drink the water though, because there is bacteria in the water, though it may not be harmful, it still may not react with our bodies very well.

Stages of Water Purification

I thought it was pretty cool how the plant uses a lot of gravity to get many of the solid pollutants out of the water. the plant is set up to use as little electricity as possible, though their electric bill is still 50,000 dollars per month. I can believe that with all of the heavy machinery that they use. The following four pictures are pretty much follow the process in which the water travels. The pumps in the picture directly below pump the water to the narrow tanks where gravel, rocks, etc, are removed from the water. From here the water flows into the wide tanks where skimmers go through the water to any smaller rocks, and sediments and also oil/grease, is removed from the water. Then the water flows into the next tanks to get injected with bacteria to break up the dissolved pollutants that are in the water. From here, the water flows into the final tanks where the bacteria is pumped out of the water so it can rest and be reused. I enjoyed how Craig used unrelated analogies, like thanksgiving, to explain what the bacteria do. They eat as much as they can, then it is time to rest; once they wake up they are ready to eat again. 

Stage 1: pumps

Stage 2: Narrow tanks

Stage 3: Wide Tanks

Stage 4: bacteria

Stage 5: Final Tanks

Stage 6: incinerators

The above picture is what the inside of the incinerator looks like. Albany County Sewer District burns their sludge or bio-solids in this incinerator. This is much more effective than the dumping of the bio-solids in landfills. Craig explained that this treatment plant is the only one around that burns their bio-solids and uses the heat to power a generator that provides then with 40% of their electricity. They spent 9,000,000 dollars on a generator that they imported from Italy to help reduce their electricity bill. The trip to the treatment plant was interesting and it's amazing how much time and energy is spent on providing clean water to the community. After the treatment plant we headed back to campus for lunch and our presentations on the NYS Museum. I thought these went well. My favorite part of the night though, was hanging out with the girls after class. We went to the lounge in Manning, ordered pizza, watched a movie and played a little Monopoly. It was an all around excellent day.