Kalamazoo Water Reclamation Plant

Wastewater treatment systems are very important to providing clean, drinkable water to its surrounding societies. These systems also help in the removal of contaminants in wastewater from household sewage, runoff, domestic, commercial and institutional units. Processes include physical, chemical and biological manipulation of contaminants to neutralize their effects on the human body for consumption. There are three main types of treatment, primary, secondary and tertiary, all of which have separate units and processes that flow in an organized manner to ultimately end up with recycled potable water. First in primary treatment the sewage is temporarily held in a quiescent basin where heavy solids settle to the bottom while other contaminants such as oil, grease and lighter solids float to the top. Commonly used procedures involve bar screens with washer compactors that remove a majority of non-fine solid material waste. Other airs is added to settle solids for grit removal. Fine screens as also used to capture the finer waste material that flows through the primary larger hole bar screens. They can often have two different sizes of bar screens that help in removing as much sold material waste before moving onto secondary treatment. The finer screens are used to capture plastics that come into the system. Secondary treatment removes dissolved material and biological matter that is suspended between the top and bottom of the tank. Secondary treatment involves the use of