How to Clean Sewage with Gravity
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- Опубликовано: 28 фев 2022
- The science of sedimentation and the first step of wastewater treatment.
We often use chemicals, filters, and even gigantic colonies of bacteria to clean sewage on such a massive scale, but the first line of defense in the fight against dirty water is usually just gravity.
All the wastewater videos so far: • Wastewater Management
Errata: (1) At 6:16, the header should say "ALL PARTICLES SETTLE WHEN tD IS LESS THAN tL."
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Having worked in the water and waste water industry for the last 22 years here in the UK, i can say your video is 100% correct, apart from the flocculants we use are polymer not pool cleaner :)
What happened to everybody's favorite segment of getting to watch you try to cook a meal‽
only for US residents. "we currently require all Wealthfront clients to have a U.S. social security number, a permanent U.S. residential address, and currently reside in the U.S due to financial regulations. "
Can you please explain "peak days" in the context of sewage? Are there days where we all just shit more?
So is (W) the 3D part of the equation? 6:05
The small scale demonstrations are what set this channel apart from the rest in the beginning. I hope they never go away. I really appreciate the work.
I completely agree. Bet his wife wishes she could park in the garage though lol.
1000% agree
I loved the coloured sand one
Totally agree
hello are you Minecraft Steve or Crablante from One Punch Man
When I was a teenager I seriously considered going into wastewater management. I visited to treatment plants and I found the process pretty darn interesting. In the end I picked a job that would pay better, but I sure love clean water
I knew some people who had great careers doing so. The stink keeps people away
@@ChevTecGroup - You don't even notice the stink after a while. I worked on the headworks upgrade for the Boston Harbor cleanup project about 30 years ago on the equipment that moved the grit and screenings material up to trucks six stories above at ground level.
@@chickenwing111 I've heard the same. But people can't get over the initial stink to even imagine applying there.
Same here i loved that quest on fa4 and felt like I was a pro but later on on the game I just wanted to be a bit raider lol
Mostly the smell isn't too bad. Mostly.
As an Environmental Engineer, it's amazing that wastewater treatment is getting the exposure that it deserves. This can go a long way into shaping people's opinion in processes that are crucial in our lives but are oblivious to.
Couldn't agree more, im a maintenance tech for a water company and people seem to think that Sewage just, kinda goes down the drain and disappears to some magic location?!
how is the sediment accumulated at the bottom taken care of? I mean I assume that it eventually piles up
@@BringDHouseDown 9:00
@@BringDHouseDown Grit, as it is commonly called can be removed manually in small-scale plants. Large scale plants employ bucket s calpers, pumps, or screw conveyors. Sludge ( biodegraded material) is removed every 3-4 years ( depending on system design), dried and sold as fertilizer.
Hey i've got a question: These circular clarifiers are called Dorr-type clarifiers right? Dorr clasifiers are often used in mining so there is where my question stems from.
My father in law was a pipefitter in Chicago so we got to go to the grand opening of Stickney Treatment plant. They showed and explained the different steps and processes used to separate things then put us on a sludge train. At the end of the line they has a HUGE field/ train yard that the sludge was dump into, then turned several times like compose. They would sell this as fertilizer.
Woah! Cool!
Cool! And also, Ew!
@@jasonmyneni8605 that will be used to grow corn for the beef/pig to eat that you'll eat in tomorrows breakfast
Selling composted sludge as fertilizer is all well and good until you think about the industrial waste included in the treatment plant's feed stream, some of which gets into the sludge. The composting process (theoretically) kills harmful bacteria but mostly doesn't affect heavy metals (lead and mercury, for example) and other industrial contaminants that you definitely don't want in your food. Personally, I wouldn't want to eat food derived from this fertilizer. The fertilizer may be ok for non-food crops (flowers, trees for wood, biofuel) but not food.
I wonder if the stink blows to the neighborhood to the north.
Keep these public works videos coming! I manage a small municipal electric, water, and sewer utility and these videos help me better understand some of the fundamentals that our crews work with on a daily basis.
I managed medium municipal eclectic, water severe waste utility and clean plant for 5 year
It's always great to see the head guys learning their crew's jobs better. That usually means less unreasonable expectations and a better working relationship.
@AGNÉZ Buny Girls This isnt what we want to learn
Interesting confirmation that managers are nearly clueless what the people they're managing do.
@@AboveEmAllProductionI managed large municipal eclectic, water severe waste utility and clean plant for 10 year
"A moment of tranquility" Being used to describe sewage settling to the bottom is just not the words I would have used.
To be one with the universe.. FLUSH.
I'm enjoying a moment of tranquility as I watch this in the bathroom while adding to that very waste stream. Ah, the circle of life...
@@RealJohnnyDingo 😂
My three little boys ( ages 7, 4, and 1) always come running for these waste water videos :) They are fascinated by our small town's sewage treatment plant and are so very disappointed that they don't give tours. These videos have been the next best thing. Thank you for another excellent video.
You should really write to the local sewage treatment plant about giving a special tour for your boys! I hope they'll do it :D
But its stinky 😅
@@Xv1p3rCr0 It doesnt smell that much.
If you say so. 🙃
@@Xv1p3rCr0 For boys that age something being stinky probably adds to the charm...
I'm a California Grade IV wastewater treatment plant operator and I take pride in what I do. Job security for sure. Excellent presentation you gave. Thank you
As a grade 1 operator I have to admit I didn't think the job would be as fulfilling as it actually is, but I take pride in knowing I'm helping to keep my community's water clean and safe.
@@Thoughtmage100 I actually went all the way on go my grade V, in June. That's how committed I am.
@TheWicho46 Congratulations! I'm hoping to shoot for my grade II soon, but our facility has been a bit understaffed lately. Fortunately the city I work with paid for the classes and exams to train me in both drinking water and wastewater.
You all are unsung heroes of everyday life. Thank y'all for your hard work!
Thank both of you for being the 15% or so of the population who are the absolute backbone of this country.... Hard working people like you... Along with all the great tradesman out there are the unsung heroes that allow us to live our lives in such convenience every day...
In my specific field we have a wastewater pretreatment process called "metals precipitation" which uses hydrated lime and flocculant to "settle" and separate the metal contamination out so we can release clean water. It also uses a clarifier and at least one "polishing tank" to allow the sludge to descend, and a clear water layer to form and flow out of the plant into the sewer system.
In my previous field we did second hand waste management survival, called fill metal perception, which uses hydraphobic particle acceleration through flocculant construction of contaminated sludge.
in my future field we drink lots of water so our urine is clear. then we pass it onto the next person. no wastewater treatment needed
@@Blox117 lol
@@Blox117 so efficient
@@Blox117 in my cosmic field we drink psychotropic water so our urine contains psychedelics to pass on to our children. Mushrooms are our wastewater treatment.
As a student engineer in Toronto, I did a work term co-op at the Queen Street sewage treatment plant. 32 years later I can still smell it when I think about those days. It was a huge factor in choosing to focus on Structural Engineering.
I grew up in farm country so i already knew that i could never handle sewage treatment, definitely glad I chose Electrical Engineering.
PS: "liquid manure" is so awful that my neighbor could smell the "honey wagon" of it drive by while he was milking his own cows. (Liquid manure has extra nitrogen added which results in more bacterial growth and makes it a better fertilizer, this also makes it one of the worst smells on earth)
@@jasonreed7522 Electrical engineers will visit sewage treatment plants too.... The pumps often are driven by variable speed drives, and there are many control systems. Fortunately I can say that my entire time spent at a treatment plant was measured in hours. My employer's equipment was having repeated warranty failures so I got sent to investigate.
@@jasonreed7522 nothin wrong with a lil squirt squirt
@@jasonreed7522 i live on a chicken farm that keeps liquid manure, I just don't smell much anymore
@@matthewbeasley7765 fortunately my company mainly focused on "clean industry" and universities so its mostly clean rooms and lab buildings for our work.
But we do/did have a single project for installing an anaerobic digester for a farm to make biogas power. Fortunately that was being done by another office and so I wasn't on that project, but i did see pictures. (I'm wasn't bothered, once i walked through my neighbors barn in rubber flipflops and i don't know why my dad let me do that looking back)
Also mechanical field work for such places is much more involved than electrical field work since we just need panel and machine label information. To an EE everything is just a black box with power requirements and a transfer function. Sure an electron microscope may have facinating physics going on but at the end of the day it comes with a spec sheet that has a list of its power needs (ups, low noise, nema plug number, voltage class, power draw, ect).
Feel bad for the commissioning department who has to make sure it works after its been installed.
As a non engineer working in the civil engineering world, these videos have been incredibly helpful in understanding not just the process flow but the math behind the processes I see in my day to day.
I work for a municipality in the US and it is amazing how fast water treatment plants can clean water. One of the plants we have can take sewage and turn it into water clean enough to discharge in only about 24 hours; it really surprised me when I was discussing it with our Public Works department. An treatment operator is a good job, I consistently see openings for these positions. Urban areas and water treatment needs are only going to grow.
Thats where they got purified labeling from.. Makes sense now 🙃😁
To my knowledge, wasted water goes in a water treatment system will remain in the system 5-7 days (to be treated by said system). The treated water that goes out is the wasted water of 5-7 days prior, 24 hour mark is flush gate opening cycles. Or maybe the plants you're talking about running different system. Cheers.
Seeing the water treatment plant in my city, I use to wonder, what those circular pools are
Thanks to Practical Engineering for ending my doubt.
Poo pools
Swimming
Dear Grady, great to hear such a complicated topic presented so easily.
I am working in the wwtp field with newest technologies such as electro dialysis, ultrafiltration or reverse osmosis.
In case you need contacts to a full scale plant almost everywhere in the world, to shoot videos or do interviews, don't hesitate to drop a comment and I can forward you to some colleagues.
Cheers
Grady
@@adobedoug2564 fixed :) thx
GF works at one of the Seattle area sewage plants, on the solids side of things. "Polymer" is a big part of getting the solids to separate from the liquids. Once settled out, the solids go to enclosed digesters where the "material" is more or less composted in an anaerobic process. The resulting methane is used to help provide process heat for elsewhere in the plant. Once sufficiently digested, the solids are dewatered (the watery "mud" first goes on a separating belt to let liquid drip out, then into centrifuges to spin out more water) to the consistency of wet soil and shipped to eastern Washington for disposal, er, I mean application as fertilizer on agricultural land. Seattle area folks - if you've ever seen double dump trucks on I-90 with "Loop - turn your dirt around" you now know that is what's left of Seattle's poo.
Poo in a truck beats San Francisco style! I really appreciate water and sewage workers, just think about what kind of a community you'd have without their efforts.
I learned engines by working with my dad at a waste water treatment plant. They had 4 big natural gas Cat engines (that we maintained) that turned the blowers to aerated the sewage as it entered the plant. I learned a lot, not only from dad, but from the engineers, operators and chemists at the plant. Really, really cool!
Don't forget belt presses Grady! Thanks for doing this series! My dad was a wastewater plant operator when I was growing up, it was a lot more interesting than people would think, especially when the state would audit them because their lab results showed the effluent exceeded state drinking water standards. . . And then the audit would reveal they WEREN'T falsifying their results! 🤣
The fish absolutely love the output of our waste treatment plant, the water is so clean and well oxygenated. Thanks, ever increasing EPA standards, and thanks, increasingly expensive water bill.
Settlement is often the last step in a legal process too. 😝
Thanks for clarifying about clarifiers.
Lol, now I am thinking of gangsters who take their "legal disputes" to a waste water treatment plant for "settlement".
And if the lawyers handle it poorly the gangsters push them into the river where all the treated pollutants go.
Taking extremely complex systems and simplifying them is something that you do best with these videos. You did a dang good job explaining the basics of WWT in a 11 minute video. This video could be 30 hours long with how complicated and elaborate water treatment can be.
The precasting company I work for has made a few parts for these facilities. I've definitely drawn up walls for clarifiers and digesters, along with pumping stations. They may not smell great, but these places are absolutely critical for civilization.
Sometimes I imagine your wife making commentary while you're shooting the video:
"Oh yeah shake that bottle"
"Ooo fancy, he's got flocculants"
Hopefully you do a video on aerobic and anaerobic digestion. Sludge is such a critical part of WWT, and I feel like it is often overlooked. Great video!
Me and my former process and maintenance tech colleagues at a waste water treatment plant used to refer to ourselves as animal caretakers in that same line of thought ;)
I do video from aerobic and anaesthetic digest from anorexic parts of both wwt and wwt3, but only fine columns of sludge can be transferred at a time. I love physics!
@@SonsOfLorgar 😅😂 You will be running the place someday! (If you want to, that is!) 🤣
Yes please! 🙏
@@SonsOfLorgar the "bugs" can be quiet temperamental. A plant that I worked at had too little water entering the plant so were heavily impacted by summer heat. We had to occasionally get a transplant of sludge from a nearby municipal plant to restore the biodiversity.
I work for the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) department at a municipal water and wastewater management company. These videos explaining how our wastewater systems work is phenomenal. Thank you for your hard work and the informational videos!
When you find someone with the same occupation as you do in the RUclips comments section ❤️
Do you generally use citect, geo/clear, Honeywell for your SCADA?
@@ScottyTee06 siemens is usually the best
I love your channel. I have been a wastewater treatment plant operator and am currently a potable water treatment plant operator. It is gratifying to see the processes that underlie the functioning of modern society explained in laymen's terms.
Hey Grady, water/wastewater process engineer here- Great video! Have you considered making Continuing Education versions of these? Might be another way to get some revenue for the effort. I'd rather watch your vids than any other CE providers.
Dear Grady, I have an interest in engineering and technology topics and I absolutely love your videos. I think they make said topics much more friendly and accessible to everyone, and are truly inspiring. Sure, there's so much more about engineering than what you show - so much more math, for example 😅😱 but I'm sure in my heart of hearts that it is possible to make videos like these even for the most complex mathematical aspects of the things you show here, to make them just as accessible. Keep it up!!👏
@@aduantas Corrected, thanks 🙏
Awesome job! This episode hit home. I was born and raised in Chicago and now live near the Northside water reclamation plant in Skokie IL.
The plant is connected to Stikney by 16 miles of pipe. The Skokie plant sends the primary and secondary settling tank sludge to Stikney to be digested and dewatered. The sludge is composted and used as fertilizer.
My wife has covered our front yard with the fertilized and is planting native plants in place of our lawn.
I guess you could say that my yard is the final step in the settling tank process. :)
Having had the opportunity to visit both waste water and drinking water plant here in the Netherlands, It is interesting to see the similarities and differences across the pond. While the wastewater treatment is largely similar, for drinking water the sediment separation is not done with chemicals but electrostatically. Furthermore, we use ozone and UV sterilisation so the water does not contain much if any chlorine. Tap water here is the same quality as bottled drinking water. To keep the water supply safe, waste water treatment is very important!
The sediment of waste water gets pumped to a fermenting plant where they evaporate the water and then let the residue ferment. The resulting gas is used to generate electric power, and the remaining residue is burnt and its residual heat used in the same electrical power generator.
I work in water and wastewater engineering in the US. Ozone and UV disinfection are both known technologies over here, although I’ve only seen one ozone plant in my, admittedly still early, career. UV is much more common, and is arguably displacing chlorine in wastewater applications. It is less popular with potable water because unlike chlorine, UV disinfection provides no ongoing disinfecting effect after the water leaves the plant. Residual chlorine in the distribution system helps to prevent microbes from developing in the pipe network. The downside is that, if any of your pipes are metal, corrosion becomes a concern over time.
Tap water is generally at a rather higher quality than bottled.
I love the concept when someone presents a lesson where they explain to have gravity work in your favor.
An example of having gravity working in your favor is with removing a heavy object from a box. Instead of straining to lift the item out of the box, a person should tip the box on its end so that the lightweight box is lifted-up while the heavy object remains on the floor. That way you are having gravity working in your favor to remove the box from the heavy object.
I always prefer to work smarter instead of harder!
@@CGT80 I agree! There's been times in life when working smarter didn't bode well with my bosses; as I came up with the idea and they didn't. Bosses like that may indicate their insecurities.
minor correction, at 6:16 , it should be "all particles settle when t_d < t_l " because, as you mentioned, you want the time it takes for particles to settle to be LESS than it takes to travel the basin's length. You then performed a multiplicative inverse which changes the direction of your inequality symbol to get your overflow rate. Great video nonetheless, very informative.
As a guy who builds waste water plants this is great. Please make more of these they are very well done. I can’t wait to show my crews these videos.
Great starting video. I was a construction/distribution manager for a water treatment plant and would really like you to do more in depth videos on these subjects. Many thanks.
So excited for this! Great video; I am a PE who focuses in wastewater treatment in Michigan. Glad to see this information getting out there in an entertaining way.
I'm thinking of entering into the industry! I'm an environmental science student. Any tips on what I should do to secure a good placement year within the industry!
Where at and/or with whom? I'm the Utilities Electrical Foreman for Flint and we're having fun here in Flint spending lots of SRF money.
@@timothydonlan9112 I work for Williams & Works in Grand Rapids.
I'm a process engineer who specialises in coagulation and brine treatment, and I really think you did a great job of explaining the sedimentation. Also your coagulation demo was very neat, quick and informative. I will definetely use that one for future presentations. I hope you'll do more water treatment videos in the future, even though it is not entirely in the field of civil engineering
You should check out "Tonka" by Kurita Water. Their UTS system and "Simul-wash" patent is incredible stuff!
I'm a biological wastewater treatment plant operator. This video did such a fantastic job explaining some of the principles used in treatment and how the plant works. Thanks for putting out such informative videos.
That demonstration with the white and black sand is incredibly effective!
I kinda love how we really just use a ton of pretty simplistic processes in series to create the miracle of clean water, when you break it down each step is fairly simple but we just do it on a huge scale and in clever combinations and get clean water. It's almost as much a triumph of construction as it is engineering.
and we better be grateful for it xD
Collecting the sludge is also important for just making the whole process work economically - because by readding some of the sludge collected in the clarifiers at the beginning of the secondary stage, it is possible to have the solids retention time be many times higher than the hydraulic retention time, which is set by the volume of the secondary stage and the flow rate through it. A quite high solids retention time is necessary to give the bacteria enough time to sufficiently degrade dissolved organic contaminants.
Kinda like biomedia in an aquarium filter, but on a much larger scale? Neat! :D
@@Dth091 That's the other method that is used in some wastewater treatment plants too, growing the bacteria as a biofilm using something like a trickling filter or a fluidised bed bioreactor. Those can be more space-efficient than the normal activated sludge process, but also more complex and expensive than just a few big concrete basins.
My grandparents lived about 5 blocks south of the exact plant on the thumbnail. I was always so fascinated by the magnitude of this plant!
That demonstration with the white and black sands is an awesome explanation of why centrifuges work
There might be several reasons I don't want to take a swim in one of those pools, but I only need one.
It sounds like exercise and I'm not about that.
I have been over-joyed by this series, I work for a DWR and visit our plants on a regular basis. Seeing it taught in a fun and interesting way is just awesome! not to mention seeing the ways our process is the same or different from other municipalities. You're awesome Grady, keep it up!
It warms my heart seeing the very thing I work with being brought up on your channel.
Now my specific area is industrial wastewater from a pulp processing plant so there are some adjustments to the biological portion of the process to deal with but the core principle is still intact as you describe it. Since I was a little boy I have been fond of water as I grew up close to a small picturesque freshwater lake and just beyond that the Baltic ocean. It pollution and waste in the water compelled me to study biology and the ecology of watersystems on a molecular scale at University. So to now work with it after all these years and have it brought to attention by you is truly wonderful!
Thanks for the great video, as always!
Being an Environmental Engineer and a professor teaching these subjects (Wastewater Treatment Engineering, Water Supply and Treatment), the positivity and enthusiasm regarding this topic in the comment section does put a smile on my face.
I wake up to this video as I'm heading to My Water Treatment Class, talk about perfect timing, Always Love your Videos Grady 👍
This was an awesome video! I work in wastewater, typically the screens that take out branches and trash, but I also work in sludge thickening, which is like your pool cleaner demo. For sludge thickening machines, the inlet sludge is typically 0.5 to 1.5% solids, and after being treated with chemicals (polymer) and sent through a process machine, it can come out anywhere from 5-10% solids, which is an 80+% reduction in volume.
Wastewater Treatment Operator here, I love this industry. Seems like its complicated but you learn your plant quickly and your city inflow characteristics as well. I like to describe it as a cruise ship, nice and slow with slight changes. Thank you for these videos, hopefully we can inspire the next generation of Wastewater Operators!
I love how you focus on the general principles, such as flow rates and sedimentation physics, and only use the modern facilities as examples, instead of focusing on the facilities with the general understanding used only as extra examples. If I wanted to build my own small scale sewage plant, whether in urban, rural or even wooded environments, I'd still know what was needed to be done (not everything, such as contamination mitigation, but you get it). Your content really makes the world a better place. Thank you!
I've been trying to reverse an old, over sedimented pond and this was interesting for that purpose. One idea for a video would be how lakes/ponds silt over time with dead leaves, sticks, etc resulting in stagnation and methane production. (And how one could go about fixing one in their backyard without a backhoe 😅)
Good luck with that pipe dream
@@Fdeubcfhbbjhfd Yeah I know it.. it's a 2.5 acre pond so it'd be an expensive endeavor getting it dredged properly
Aquatic Aeration - slow but very effective - simple to install
Easy. Explosives. Or hire Elon Musk to have one of his rockets grab you a microasteroid and drop it to impact at the center of your pond surface. Seriously a dozer can also do it. How was it dug in the first place or was it natural?
Thanks for this video I am actually working on a big clarifying station projet. Thanks for the effort thank you very much 💝
I worked at a wastewater treatment plant for 13 years before becoming a teacher. This was a pretty good explanation of clarifiers, but you skimmed what is done to the particles that settle out to the bottom of the clarifier. At my plant, we pumped them back to the head of the aerators for further treatment as the mostly cleared water goes over the weirs.
I worked for the Clayton County Water Authority in Georgia. We won all kinds of awards. People from all over the world toured our water and wastewater plants to learn how to improve their own systems back home.
After a 40+ year career in water, wastewater, power, petroleum and mining industries I am always impressed by your content. Keep educating the public!
I always love these in depth looks you do on science/engineering projects. It would be cool if you did a collaboration with Destin from Smarter Every Day.
I work as a plumber, and when it comes to sewage disposal on a mass scale, your video was very informative.
When it comes to settling particles with an electric charge, Mark Rober made a video awhile back about how I believe P&G made a packet compound that does exactly what your experiment showed, to purify water in Africa and more poverty-riddled countries.
I recommend everyone to check that video out as well.
As a flood defense engineer in the uk I find it really interesting to watch these videos with the demos. Great videos keep them coming.
This is my only subscription on RUclips! I check for new content all the time!
Only @Practical Engineering could make a video about sewage fascinating! Love the infrastructure videos.
I'd love to hear and see more about how they collect and remove the sediment/sludge after it's out of the water. How often do they have to do that? Is it as gross as it sounds like it would be?
There is a pipe at the bottom of the clarifier that takes the sludge to a sludge basin. Then the sludge from the sludge basin is pumped to a belt press, which presses the water out of the sludge. The water then goes back through the process without the sludge, and the sludge is put in a dump truck and hauled to the landfill. Hopefully that answers your question.
In Seattle they turn the biosolids into fertilizer!
I love all your videos but the water ones the most. Your voice is so comforting!
I'm a trucker that hauls a chemical used to aid clarifying with many customers around the Chicago area (though not to Stickney), and it's always been a bit fascinating seeing how things run. In one info packet I saw, the raw sewage was pumped to the main treatment plant inlet, and then flowed by gravity alone through all the steps until final discharge. Pretty efficient setups.
I worked at a brewery with a waste water treatment plant for brewery runoff. I never worked in the plant, just the brew side, but I learned a lot about waste treatment. This video was so informative and I found my self thinking about ways my previous employer could improve their system.
Grady, you're awesome, and you're content is quality 👌 Thank you for doing what you do.
I love how much you been uploading Grady! KEEP IT UP!!!!
This is one of my favorite RUclips channels. I wish you had time to post more but I am always excited when I see a new video so it’s okay.
I am currently working on an expansion of Hawaii's second largest wastewater treatment plant to full secondary treatment. This video is awesome! I love taking your plain language explanations and use it to communicate with the different stakeholders on the project.
Excellent explanatory video Grady! I’m an Operations Manager at Beckton Treatment Works, which is the largest in Europe and treats the waste of nearly 4 million Londoners from Bazalgette’s original 1860s Sewers. We have 16 enormous Primary Settlement Tanks (PSTs), and 88 Final Settlement Tanks (FSTs). You’ve nailed the sheer effective simplicity of the settlement process - visitors to site are often astounded that, bar dewatering/sludge thickening, the treatment process is exclusively gravitational and biological.
Keep the fab videos coming :)
probably the most useful ad i've ever seen. great content btw
Brilliant. The SIMPLE demos you provide are just great, easy ro follow and hence, understand.
You're just the best. Masterful balance of technical details and layperson explanations. You were destined for this.
I always look foward to your videos! Love the knowledge!
Stickney is amazing. I work at one of the larger treatment plants in the region, and they make us look like a porta potty. The plant is so large they have an actual tour bus to take visitors around.
As a wastewater operator I’ve been asked “how does it work?” more times then I can count and just like you said I simply put it as “separation of the dangerous materials from the water either by physical, chemical, or biological means is the easiest way I can put it”
Great video. As a wastewater treatment operator, I'd say you took all the complicated stuff and made it easily digestible for the average person.
What you failed to mention, however, is that the engineering firm that won the bid to design and build the facility was the lowest bidder, they did the absolute minimum to get paid, and were long gone by the time operations started running the facility; left to "make it work" because all the genius engineers couldn't have been bothered to listen to us lowly, unclean operators, and consider what we said we needed vs what they decided we needed
Most engineering contracts for public infrastructure in the US are awarded based on qualifications, not price. In addition, most firms awarded large contracts like this have long-term relationships with the clients and definitely maintain a presence and relationship after a project is complete (with the hopes of winning the next one).
I have been waiting for this subject to come up...Thanks.
I've been really curious as to how these work, and I'm glad this channel made a video about it.
Grady, how did you resist not using any jokes regarding a certain organic solid in wastewater? Your maturity and focus is stunning.
Thank you Grady,
This was excellent.
Worked at many wastewater treatment plants in San Diego during my industrial coatings apprenticeship. Can’t believe this video has shown up in my feed!
Your videos are so clean. Well made. Thanks man
Another great video! Looking forward to the rest of this series!
These videos are amazing to me, several topics I sort of had an idea from school grazing over the subject but the videos really help quickly clarify how things truly work. Thank you,
My father was a commercial plumber. One of the many important lessons he taught me was everything can be broken down into math. He was a middle school drop out, yet knew all the equations related to plumbing like he was a math professor and used them all the time at his work. He often showed me these to prove his point about reality = math. I was one of the few students who knew that you could truly use Algebra in the real world defying the common "who is going to ever use this" that goes with Algebra.
That said, I hated math as a student and failed algebra 2 years in a row just out of laziness. Funny thing happened the 3rd year though - I paid attention and seeing how different it was from basic mathematics I fell in love with it and passed with a 97, and made a perfect score on the state algebra test. I love seeing in your videos how this all comes together in real world scenarios just like my father use to show me.
Exceptionally good video. Thanks Grady
Thanks, Brady. A lot of useful information is presented in an organized and simple way.
Just finished my water plant operations course last year, your videos are fantastic and spot on. Really helped me in my studying to better understand the process. Thank you!
A friend who is a civil engineer says he watches your channel to learn about othet things he's less familiar on / how to better synthesize complicated issues. Both professionals and everyday people learn alot from you. Thanks!
(also, appreciate links to other videos.)
I was never sure what a clarifier was, I glad you were able to... shed a light on it!
I'm glad you clarified what a clarifier is because it was never clear to me before.
Hi Grady, I enjoy watching your video's and demonstrations supporting the subject being discussed. A point that could be mentioned here is the city of Chicago only has a single sewer system that collect's house hold waste, business waste, and storm water waste. Over many years, decades, the city drilled a tunnel system to collect this combined waste water during heavy rains to prevent flooding and sewer backup's into house's. The waste water is then pumped out of the tunnel system to and ran through, at a later time, this treatment plant. This tunnel system is also connected to a old open air stone quarry located on the south side of the city.
Great video as always!!! Keep up the good work.
Hands down the most useful channel on youtube!!!
Probably the best series until now 👍 keep it up
Yay!!! There videos are incredble quality! Its always exciting to see a new episode. I for one love the wastewater series!
This is fantastic! I work for a company that provides those settling chemistries and helps run these process with the municipality- it's called Nalco! I've loved your channel for years, so seeing something that I do is really awesome.
I always enjoy and truly appreciate your topics here. Thanks so much!
Amazing video, like always. Thank you very much!
I was so excited when I saw that you had made a video on this topic because I have been wondering about what those facilities are and how they work. I was not disappointed. Once again you deliver quality info -well done.
Really nice, love the demos.
Hey Grady! Interesting Video!! Keep it coming!!
Man that was a really good video. Thank you for being thorough, clear and overwhelmingly positive.
I’ve taken multiple classes on water treatment and i still love these videos.