Nuts and Bolts Educational Conference 2018: The Site Visit
ANDERSON WASTEWATER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2
The reclaimed water is used for landscaping and irrigation. The pellets are then turned into what is called a "soil rich
amendment," or, super-powered fertilizer, to the tune of about 2,000 tons of product per year. The recycled water is applied to
the land through irrigation with excess
volumes discharged to surface
water. Largo's wastewater collection
system is made up of about 282 miles
of gravity pipelines, 45 miles of force
mains, 5,560 manholes and 52 lift
stations. For a schematic of how this all
works, click here.
Constructed during 1977 and later
expanded, the City of Largo's biosolids
heat drying facility pelletizes and dries
solids that are extracted from
processed wastewater. In the first part,
there's the preliminary treatment,
where all the debris is removed. The
water treatment plant itself has been
around since the early 1970s. For a
video on how the city's sewer system
works, check out the YouTube clip
here.
"There's the point where we remove the regular sewage, contaminants, organics, the debris, the phosphorus and the sand –
things we call the grit," Kety says. "Then we have two approaches. One is a disinfection process with liquid chlorine, and that
part ends up being recycled water for irrigation and other public uses."
But it's the second process that Kety describes as "cutting edge." "We use peracetic acid, like they use in the food industry,
that allows us to discharge water into Tampa Bay. All that water has to go somewhere."
The facility has a permit for just that, and that implies that the water is clean enough to go back into natural waters. "Peracetic
acid gives us the treatment with compounds that you can't get from chlorine. That is cutting edge, and that is just coming
online now."
Kety notes that the facility just finished a $25 million upgrade, and throws around other figures for other improvements, like $62
million here and $80 million there for a construction project that began six years ago, but is really ongoing. He notes that the
state of Florida gets funds from the federal government, and that interest rates on the 20-year loans are very low.
"It's all biological, and we just let the bacteria work and our job is to keep the bacteria happy," Kety concludes. "People come
in and see sewage coming in, then walk a couple hundred feet and see that it looks like water coming out of your tap." -- gr
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WEEKLY EDITION SEPTEMBER 26, 2018
