Field Trip Reaction Paper - Water Tower Square

Introduction

The Environmental Impacts of the of HVAC Industry class in March 31st, 2017 paid a visit to the William municipal water authority, the Water Tower Square and to the William Sports Sanitary Authority. As a member of that class, we first made our visit to the Williamsport Sanitary Authority and Williamsport Municipal Water Authority which is a company that supplies water of high quality and services for wastewater utility to the PA area of Williamsport. The water company plays the roles of maintaining the safety of public health and improving the quality of the community's environment. Furthermore, the company has the responsibility of delivering municipal waste services that are of high quality to the residential, industrial and commercial users at a reasonable and affordable price for Williamsport. The area around Williamsport is supplied with clean drinking water.

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The process of conventional sewage water treatment comprises of preliminary, primary, secondary and tertiary treatment. The wastewater also undergoes stable handling and disinfection to make it safe for reuse. First, the received raw sewage undergoes filtration to remove the big waste materials which are passed to the sewer system as preliminary treatment takes place. The solid matter collected is found out to be anything like toys, snakes, sticks or even rags. Therefore to eliminate those solid items, bar screens are used.

One of the components in the preliminary treatment is grit channel. Therefore careful management of the speeding incoming wastewater is done in that grit channel so that the sand, grit, and stones can settle down that channel. That occurs as the channel maintains the floating organic material in a water column. However, the preliminary treatment is essential in the water treatment process as it prevents the water pumps from getting damaged as well as the other equipment in the water treatment stage. When the sewage is allowed to penetrate through the giant tanks in the treatment plant, primary clarifier tanks which are also the sedimentation tanks are thus used. The water thus goes through the sedimentation stage.

The approximate amount of organic material that is eliminated from the wastewater is 90% that is via using the biological treatment process during the secondary treatment process. Suspended growth and attached growth processes consist of the secondary treatment. Therefore the processes whereby microorganisms for instance bacteria and fungi are capable of growing in a plastic media and be able to form microbial growth in that particular media or a slime layer is known as attached growth processes. The organic waste will then be consumed by the growing microorganisms. On the other hand, where the bacterial growth is spread in an aired mixture of water and where the organic matter is broken down by microbes, this process is known as a suspended growth process.

In the tertiary treatment, the treatment process is more advanced and involves high-quality effluent being produced. Therefore the treatment is the most necessary for reuse of wastewater. During disinfection, microorganisms are however reduced in the water that taken back to the environment. The most popular techniques used in water disinfection during tertiary treatment are the use of ultraviolet light, ozonation, and chlorine. However, chlorination is mostly used because of its low cost and its value history. On the other hand chlorination, the process has one disadvantage where the chlorination organic chemicals that remain may form a harmful chlorinate-organic material that is unfriendly to the environment.

Ultraviolet can, however, be used to replace chlorine. The technique is advantageous because there will be no harm to the organisms that consume the water after that since there are no used chemicals. Despite having that advantage, the technique has the disadvantage of deteriorating the genes of pathogens, viruses, and bacteria by stopping their reproduction because of the UV radiation. Ozonation too is being used as a substitute for chlorination technique. Its advantage is that it reduces the sulfur, manganese or iron concentration by oxidizing the minerals found in water to make the elemental sulfur and metal oxide insoluble. Afterward, filtration is used to remove the insoluble materials which are followed by solid handling where the sludge of the primary and secondary treatment are processed.

On visiting the Water Tower Square, we saw an amazing climate control system. The GeoExchange system is used in the climate control that uses treated effluent from the treatment plant of the municipal sewage as a heat source or sink. Two plate frame heat-exchangers are used in the system and cross the effluent with a loop. Different speed drives enabled reduction of pumping energy both in the building pump and effluent pumps. 90% energy was reduced for the annual effluent pump and 57 % for the yearly building pump. The total building energy for HVAC energy is 37% while its annual energy consumption is 7.2kWh/ft2 whereas its building energy consumption annually is 20.0 kWh/ ft2. Effluent is pumped about 1.200ft by the Williamsport Sanitary Authority to the heat-exchange line from the discharge ones, and it is sent to the discharge line by the gravity. Moreover, there are 38 horsepower speed pumps that are variable in the facility that eliminates the effluent from discharge line to the heat exchangers. There is also 15 horsepower speed pumps in the building that circulates water in the building loop. There are also six sensible heat-exchangers that bring fresh air in the plenum.

Conclusion

The Geo Exchange system idea can be used to save money and to enhance effectiveness thus I like the idea. The use of adaptable speed drive saves energy as well as reducing the machines' environmental impact. Also, I like the idea of using UV technique as it does not involve chemicals which would cause harm to organisms that consume the water.