[KHTS] – Dozens gathered at the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District water treatment facility Saturday morning to get a more detailed look at how the Santa Clarita Sanitation District affects the Valley.
SCSD doesn’t only treat wastewater from cities, they also deal with various landfills throughout Los Angeles County and recycle as much waste as they can, according to public information officer for the district, Steve Highter.
The tour gave participants a rundown on how wastewater is monitored, treated and reclaimed.
“I’ve been reading about the problems we’ve been having with the chloride levels and was curious what really takes place,” said Jerry Edmond, a Santa Clarita resident. “It’s a heck of a sophisticated operation, very well run. (They treat) about 14 million gallons of sewage a day, cleaning it and putting it into the Santa Clara river.”
First the water passes through pre-treatment, a tank that filters out trash and large objects that may have found their way into the sewers, such as clothes, rags and even frisbees. The group was able to see part of this process as conveyor belts moved trash up and out of the water in two giant chutes.
After filtering out the trash the water makes its way into the first settling tank, here the solid waste that is floating in the water settles to the bottom where it will be filtered out and taken to a separate tank to undergo its own treatment.
From the settling tank, the water travels to the treatment tanks, where bacteria “eats” the waste in the water, cleaning it in a natural process. The tanks are exposed to the air so the bacteria will be able to “eat” the waste.
Solid waste from all the tanks is collected in it’s own tank. this tank stores the solid waste, which produces methane gas that the plant burns off to help run some functions of the facility, before being trucked out to be turned into compost.
Finally the water reaches chemical treatment, where sanitation workers inject the water with chlorine to kill off the bacteria that left the tanks. The chlorine is then balanced with another chemical before it can be released back into the Santa Clara river.
SCSD currently owns two water treatment facilities. One is located in Valencia, close to Six flags Magic Mountain, and another is located in Saugus, behind the shopping center on Bouquet Canyon road and Soledad Canyon Road.
Photos Courtesy of Skylar Barti
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
REAL NAMES ONLY: All posters must use their real individual or business name. This applies equally to Twitter account holders who use a nickname.
0 Comments
You can be the first one to leave a comment.