Today I toured the Cary Wastewater Treatment Plant. The facility is not too far away from CA and is surrounded by trees. My tour guides were named Jonathan and Joe: Jonathan was a chemist and Joe had a degree in forestry. I asked both of them why/how they ended up working in the wastewater industry, and both of them agreed that it was an under-publicized profession and they just found their way into it. Joe specifically said he chose it due to it being economically stable, while Jonathan said he first learned about the industry in a college class. Joe and Jonathan had many stories about the plant, for example, they used to have a pet duck who would run around the plant and try to get food from the workers. There are “17.75” people employed at the plant (the ¾ of a person works part time) and the facility is running 24/7. This treatment plant handles wastewater from Lake Crabtree and supplies water to parts of RTP and the RDU airport.
The water treatment process at this location (and what Jonathan says “like 99% of other plants” do) uses microorganisms instead of chemicals to treat the water. The facility focuses on lowering phosphorus and nitrogen levels in the water, as well as adding dissolved oxygen to the water. The entire process lasts around 48 hours, and the plant treats around 7 million gallons per day on average.
The last part of my visit interested me the most because they showed me the disposal of the microorganisms. The microorganisms might overpopulate the water and cause issues for the rest of the process, so some of them are flushed out of the tanks and disposed of. They are then killed using a UV light and made into a sludge (that is later used and sold as fertilizer). It turns out one of the biggest buyers of this fertilizer is a christmas tree farm.
Tomorrow I will be starting at the North Carolina Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology and I will be getting my safety training. My contact there, Ms. Mackenzie, gave me some powerpoints and videos to watch that went along with my visit to the water treatment plant. I’m excited to learn more about water treatment and its environmental impacts.
IMAGE 1: Overview of facility taken from Admin Building
IMAGE 2: One of the nutrient removal tanks
IMAGE 3:One of the clarification tanks
IMAGE 4: Sludge water tank
