The Water Treatment Plantation

On November 12th, our class went on a trip to the water treatment plantation with Ms. Marrello. The place was called Atrea. It was for several minutes until we reached there. The place was obviously next to a river, beccause that's where the long, tiring process begins. We each had our tour guide to show us around.

In Stage 1, we went to the garbage removel through course and fine filters area. What happened there was they let the water flow from the brown river to the filters. There was this big end of the bulldozer that picked the garbages up and place it to the next station. It lands in their and lifts up, every hour. There were spikes or barriers to prevent the garbage from coming in. The purpose of it was to clean out the water from garbage, 6meters down.

In Stage 2, they add in chemicals and stir to create floc. You could see bubbly brown bubbles floating at the top of the water. The water was still dark brown. The purpose of this process is to add floc and coagulate all dirts particle to stick togeter.

In Stage 3, I could see that they allowed the sediments and floc to settle st the bottom of the water. They were in very deep tanks and the water turned into a better colour. The floc and alum were given time to settle to the bottom.

In Stage 4, the water was filtered through 1 meter of sand. But the sand has to be a specific type of sand; fine, same sized, small and not from the beach. Now the colour is getting real clearer.

In Stage 5, chemical disinfects are added. They also put in chlorine and other chemicals to kill the bacteria. After that happens, they're sent to the reservoirs.

In Stage 6, the final satge, testing is done to make sure water is clean and safe to use or drink. The lab was so amazing, because I've never really set eyes on a lab filled with science equipments. There were beakers filled with pink, green and blue chemical water. It smelt like chlorine. They showed us the before and after water product. Wow, was that a difference!

We ended the trip with watching an animated movie/video about why it's important to help preserving water, maybe by not throwing your garbage or anything harmful in not just the rivers, but also oceans, sinks, lakes and many more. It also reviewed the process we learnt about. There was then a 2-question-quiz, but unfortunately I didn't win the teardrop prize. Oh well my room is stuffed with toys. I enjoyed learning about the process and think that making clean water is a very long, tiring, expensive cycle/process.