[SOUND] Rick, thank you so much for coming. Everyone, this is Rick Manner, executive director of the Champaign Urbana Sanitary District. And you have quite an operation here, right? So how many people does this place handle the waste for? >> We handle Urbana, Champaign, Savoy and the unincorporated areas. Overall, about 140,000 people. >> 140,000 people, wow. And every time a shower drain goes down, or a toilet's flushed, or the sink goes, or the dishwasher runs and it all comes here. >> Right, every drain inside a house or a business or an industry all drains into what we term sanitary sewers which come to this treatment plant. So that we can clean up the water before it goes into the nearby creeks. >> Excellent. >> Which is what we do with the water when we're done is it's discharged to the water ways. >> All right, excellent. So how much water is that? What's your total amount you treat from that in a year? >> Both of our plants in total, we do about 20 million gallons a day, which is about 13,000 gallons a minute. If you picture a room about this size or your bedroom. >> Okay. >> Picture filling that up in about a minute. That's what we do everyday. >> Every minute, every day. >> 365 days a year. >> 20,000, so we got 400, so that's 800. >> Every person uses, directly and indirectly, about 100 to 150 gallons a day. People don't believe that when they first hear it, but when you flush a toilet, it's five gallons, when you take a shower, that's 20 gallons, you was some dishes. And then in addition to that all the related business flows. >> Right. >> That you go to a restaurant or you get some clothes manufactured. That uses up water. And power production uses water and then there's a waste water stream associated with that. >> So everything in your environment, everything that you use, between 100 and 140 gallons per day per person. >> That's a general rule. >> And we have 140,000 people you're taking care of. Do the math. >> There you go, you get to 20 million gallons in a day. >> 20 million in a day and what? 200 days, that'd be 4 billion. So we're close to 5 billion gallon a year. >> Actually, we're 365 days a year because you still want to do your life on Saturday and Sunday. So we're up to 7 billion. >> So that's 7 billion gallons a year through here. I met this guy because he came and gave this awesome talk to my rotary group and then I read all your slides again last night. >> Mm-hm. >> So there are two things in the quiz that you need to remember. All right, 200 parts per million. >> That's where we start. >> That's where you start. Now that is really small, right, 200 parts per million. That would be 0.2 parts per thousand, that's 0.02%. That's the amount of solids in your waste. You don't think that. Most people if you ask someone thinking maybe 1%, right, or higher. >> Right. >> But that's only 200 parts per million of solids. Almost everything coming here is water. >> Right. >> Of course, that 200 parts per million is not something you want to consume, right? [LAUGH] >> Typical waste water starts off at that much pollutant which is very little pollutant, but it is of a nature of solids that it's unacceptable. >> Right. >> And so that mixture of waste is unacceptable to go into the environment. The reason our treatment plant is here is to change it from that unacceptable sewage characteristic. To acceptable to go into a water environment in a relatively safe manner. >> And the second thing, because I did learn from his quiz. The second thing is when it leave, it's at four parts per million. >> We're down into single digits, right. >> Single digits. >> Yeah, we're working at the very edge of that curve and we need to get out the last bits of those solids to make it acceptable to going to a creek. >> Excellent. Excellent. Now, as I also learned there are five steps in this process and now we're going to go outside and see those five steps. Correct me if I get this wrong, but I think the first thing is filtration. Get out any large pieces that happen to fall through. >> We term that screening because there's later filtration. >> Screening, aha. >> So screening because we're talking about taking out large chunks. >> Okay. >> Things like sticks and debris and plastic items and various items- >> The thing my grandchildren flush down the toilet. >> Right. >> Got it, okay. >> So beneath your feet are four foot diameter meter and [INAUDIBLE] sewers coming into the plant. All of the flow from inside anybody's building is coming in here. It's all mixed up together. And what goes on in the first step here is called screening. And so you can see here we've got quarter inch, six millimeter holes. The sewage comes through here and if you can see in that gap, you see this screen is in the main flow and anything larger than this gets caught on the screen, rinsed off. Dumped into a dumpster to go into a landfill. >> Wow, I don't suppose you try to claim like the diamond rings and everything else that comes through? >> About every couple of years, somebody comes along asking them to find their diamond ring. And we tell them, sorry, you're sort of out of luck. >> Got it. >> because what we have is a big pile of debris when we're done. >> Yes. >> And so yes, you're individual ring if you flushed it and it's gotten out of your house, it's gone. >> You're SOL. >> Pretty much. >> [LAUGH] All right. And by the way, since this is where all the raw sewage is coming in, it does smell a little bit in here. >> Right, recognize that we're here to take out that pollutant, so that's at the beginning of the operation. >> Yes. >> At the end of the operations, it doesn't smell at all because we cleaned up the water. So the reason right now the water is unacceptable. >> Right. >> The odor is probably unacceptable too, at least if you're not used to it, but it gets better as we go through it. >> All right, let's look forward to that. Now the second step is you let certain microbes eat all the things they can. >> Correct. >> Right, it's open smorgasbord for the microbes. >> Right. >> And you have big, open kind of ponds where they go through. And they convert all those solids probably into water, carbon dioxide, things like that, right? >> Our job is to keep those billions of microbes fat, happy and reproducing. >> Fat, happy and reproducing [LAUGH]. >> That's exactly what we want to do. >> I love it. >> We keep growing as optimally as possible because as a natural part of what they do, they take waste. >> Right. >> And use it and convert it into cellular matter and to convert it into less of natural forms when they are done. >> Right, right. >> And so by doing that, we convert a lot of the waste into cell mass. >> All right, so here we are, this is step number two. >> Right. >> This is the beginning of the buffet- >> Right. >> For the microbes. >> Right. >> And so, >> Dig in. >> What we have here is the mixed liquor. The combination of the microbes and all the food and everything else that is from you guys, from your waste. And in here we provide a lot more oxygen and the reason for the oxygen is to make sure the bugs stay aerobic. And that they have the food, the oxygen to respire and they continue their reproductive cycles. >> So you just [INAUDIBLE], right? >> So yeah, I mentioned our three quarters of a million dollar electric bill, the vast majority, a good fraction of it is for our electric is for the blowers. >> Okay. >> That our blowers cost us a couple of $100,000 a year to run. And that's just to provide air, so that the microbes can do their reproduction. >> You don't have to Worry about keeping this warm. Is it warm enough or- >> It's warm enough that in colder climates you do worry about it actually freezing that in further north, you'll cover these things. >> Okay. >> But recognize that the sewers are down six and ten feet into the ground and so they're at the average temperature for your climate. Here in E Central Illinois, we're in the 50 to 60 degree ranges what the Earth is at. >> How long does water stay in the ponds for the bugs to eat everything? >> That's a critical point about our overall operation. That we do what nature does in the course of 12 days, we do it in about 12 hours. That our operations here are very much mimicking what nature does in terms of how it deals with a waste load into a water environment. Things settle out, microbes feed on the waste and reproduce on it. And then eventually, as the water gets 10, 12 days down stream, eventually your waste is removed. But that's unacceptable with our population at 7 billion across the Earth. We now need to remove it ourselves because of our density of population. >> Right, so 12 hours from input to outflow. >> Correct. >> Wow, excellent, and this doesn't smell near as bad, right? >> Right. >> because we're outside [LAUGH]. >> We are at about three quarters of the odor has been removed, there's a little bit of mustiness because of the high humidity. >> Sure. >> And you can tell that something's going on here but it's not nearly as noxious. >> No. >> As what- >> And those bubbles, is that from people's phosphates and soaps that are in their water stream or- >> Anything that makes the water more stable is a surface active agent, a surfactant. There's a lot of those that are not soaps. So just if you mix enough food and such you find that there's a fraction of it that encouraged the lasting of the bubbles. And then in addition, remember we're bubbling billions of bubbles down below us. And some of them accumulate to make larger bubbles at the surface. >> Okay. So step three, settle. Because the bugs sink. >> Right, so yeah, the bugs do a nice job of taking that waste and essentially- >> They're fat and happy and they can't eat any more and they settle out to the bottom. >> Correct. >> All right. >> And by doing that, we now are separating them from the water and cleaning up the water. >> Right. >> So they do all their work and then we settle them out and separate them from the water. We need to bring back some of those bugs back to the front end of the buffet table, if you will. >> Got it, got it, yeah. >> And so they keep on going around in that circle for about- >> And reproducing and some of them dying. >> Right. >> And then they probably get eaten by their fellow bugs, right? And they never get out of the way it spins. Got it. >> So they do the majority of that work by that settling. >> Okay, so then that third step is your settling. >> So this is one of our settling tanks. This is actually a primary settling tank, normally we're talking about secondary settling tanks. But you guys probably won't care about the difference too much. >> No. >> The process is very simple and similar. All of our tanks are about 10 to 15 feet deep. In this case, the flow enters the tank at the center. >> Enters in the center, okay. >> Runs underneath that collar and then travels radially outwards to the outer edge. And then comes up under this collar and then overflows into the weir trough and out of the tank. So the key is is that we get our time from the flowing from the center of the tank out to the outer rim. It takes about an hour for the water to travel from there to here. And in that hour you get the gravity separation of the solid settling out to the bottom of the tank. The solids are removed from the bottom of the tank in a separate stream. And then you can see the water overflowing here on its way. >> So you still help pump the sludge out of the bottom. >> Right. >> Which are the bacteria. >> Right. >> And then you return them back to them. Most of them. >> Right. >> Or some of them. >> Most of them. >> because they're multiplying, obviously. >> Right. So you have to take out the amount that's produced in any given day. >> Right. >> But that's all you have to take out. So about 90% of the bugs go back to the front end of the line today. >> Okay. >> And then about 10% are removed because of the [INAUDIBLE]. >> And that becomes landfill too? >> Actually, we end up turning it into a fertilizer soil amendment to get some useful byproduct of it. >> Sure. >> And at that point, we have to treat it further to make it amenable for going out in the farmer's fields, that's called anaerobic digestion. But once we're done, we are loosing a fertilizing soil and then- >> And you're going to sell that, right? >> We don't actually sell it, the farmer gets it for the inconvenience of us going under their fields, so they get it for free. >> Okay. >> I get free fertilizer for a couple of- >> It's like I used to have a horse business and we had a manure spreader, we try to convince the farmer to let us spread manure in their fields. >> That's exactly, so we have that same arrangement. We use this over about 200 acres in a year. >> Okay, okay, all right. So we've settled out, we've turned the bugs to their dining room after their nap. >> Yep. >> Okay, onward, let's follow the water. >> And now you filter it- >> We actually have a second set of bugs in our nitrifying [INAUDIBLE]. >> Nitrifying. >> Right. >> Okay, okay so now step number four, you drop the stuff basically through the air? >> Well, the towers are about 70 foot tall and they've got a lot of plastic media in there. And so by splashing the water on the media, the microbes grow on the surface and so they get exposed to water, >> Right. >> Which includes some of the waste. >> Okay. >> Which is their food essentially. But then also when it's not splashed with water, there is oxygen from the air, >> Right. >> That can come into the water- >> Right. >> So that they can respire it- >> You call it nitriting? Is that just because- >> Nitrifying. >> The 80% nitrogen in the air? Or- >> No, because what we're taking is, we're taking ammonia and proteins and amine groups and turning them into a nitrate. >> Got it. >> And so that's nitrifying bacteria are the ones that do that conversion. >> The bacteria will take the ammonia, those types of things, out of the water and turn them into nitrates which will be a solid. >> No, it's actually still dissolved. >> Still dissolved. >> Still dissolved. But the main difference is is that ammonia is very much of a fish toxin. >> Okay. >> And so in order to help protect the fish, we're converting from a relatively toxic version of nitrogen to a less toxic one, nitrate. >> Okay. >> And so that's nitrifying bacteria and that's why we call them nitrifying towers. >> Nitrifying towers. And so that was step four. >> So what's going on here is the water is coming out of the carousel and spraying onto the plastic media. And then it goes down through the cracks and crevices between the media and works its way down. And as it's working its way down, it's going past thousands and thousands of microbes rhat are using the water and the food in the water for their life and reproduction. And so that's all this is is a big area for microbes to set up home on. >> There's a lot of surface area. >> That's the idea. >> A lot of surface area. Water just trickles through. >> And then the air comes free. In this case, we don't have to use a blower, we use the natural convection of the air. >> Right, so this is a lot like a cooling tower for a power plant. >> In some ways, yes. So it costs us here in terms of energy to bring the water up to the top and you pay for it one way or the other. Either you pay for blowers down there or you pay for the water up here. >> And how long does this take for this water to just fall through this tower of plastic channels? >> It's probably less than a minute. >> Less than a minute? So that's enough for the microbes to grab the stuff and turn them- >> Yeah, actually no, it's probably a little more than a minute. It's a couple minutes. >> A few minutes and that's enough for most of the nitrogen in there to be attached to the bugs that are eating it. >> Right. >> And basically adding oxygen, nitrating. >> Right, and the bugs have a biological imperative to find this food. >> Right. >> And so they do it as fast as they can. >> Sure, sure, they're hungry. >> Right. >> Do you have to worry about growing too many of them or some of them just fall off when they get too big? >> That sloughing off is actually the natural byproduct of that. As the layer gets too thick, the water coming by knocks off the extra- >> Takes it off, so you don't even have to clean the place. >> Right. Nice. >> It's sort of self-cleaning. >> All right. Step five, a filter before >> [CROSSTALK] filtration. >> Filtration. >> And the key is that, earlier filtration was very gross large particles that six millimeters, quarter inch type material is what we're taking out at the front end where we call it screening. When we're talking about our final filtration, we're talking about non to the micron stage in the ten micron ranges. We're now doing across a fabric filter, which essentially looks just like a plush carpet. And the carpet fibers lay down on themselves multiple layers deep. And then with that, we actually take out particles down to the micron size very efficiently. >> Now, don't those filters get clogged up? >> Well, that's the thing, is that what we do as engineers is we design things that work reliably, and do it in quantity, and do it repeatedly. And so, the filter is actually, probably the tenth generation of technology that we're now at a very high-tech fabric filter that does a good job of laying itself down, taking out the particles for hours at a time, and then once it starts to get clogged, all we have to do is back flush it with a little bit of water. The filter, releases itself, the layers undo themselves, with that in that backwash cycle then they takes that solids and takes it off. And then, all it takes is stop backwashing the flow and the ply lays down again and becomes a filter. >> And becomes a filter again. >> Right. >> Wow. >> So that's a neat process that we've gone through a lot of engineering to get us to that high-tech version, but it's as simple as filtration, but it's as complex as what I've just described. >> Yeah, very cool. So let's go see it. >> Okay. >> And we're at 90% of the way through the treatment plant. One thing that I like showing off, is that we do have full computer access that this is called the SCADA system, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. And so, from these spots you can actually, see what's going on throughout the plant. And so, here's our entire plant and you can see what's going on in any individual building by just touching it. Here's the flow diagram of what's going on, telling us which pumps are on and which pumps are off. >> So you press the wrong button, so you can screw everything up. >> You could- >> Yeah, all right. [LAUGH] >> That's why we also have lock outs and password protection and that's why I'm not allowed to touch anything- >> Even though you're the boss. >> Right I'm not an operator, I'm not the person that knows whats going on at any given- >> Hey, believe me, it's the same thing in my lab, right? >> That's it exactly. >> Yeah, okay. >> So, what we have here is this screen. And, we lay a carpet on top of this. And I'll show you the fabric filter. Like I said, it looks an awful lot like a carpet. And then the water flows through the fabric. Through this screen, and then into this central channel and then out. And then, we were talking about backwash and cleaning the filter. Take that same thing, pump the water from the, so that's where its normally producing flow, that's how its normally for backup. >> Right. >> When you need to back wash you take a pump, pump it backwards for a period of time, pumps in here goes outwards and that's what releases the solids. >> So solids that you release, you must capture them somewhere else. >> Right. >> Because otherwise it would just go right back in and clog it up. >> Right. During the backwash cycle, that waste stream is then taken off and put back to the front end of our treatment plant. >> All the way back sure, why not. >> We're very good at processing and cleaning up water. Goes back to the front end and then it gets settled out later on. >> Okay, and how often, I mean what percent of the time, are you backflowing? >> The backflow is usually a small percentage of the time. >> Like a couple percent, okay. >> Yeah, so. >> So 2% of the water recycles basically. >> Right, and that's just to clean it up. >> To clean the filters. And how long before you have to throw a filter away? >> The fabric filter itself can last a few years. >> A few years? Excellent. >> And then actually, yeah, we'll just leave it as a few years. >> And so this is the room where all the filters are in the [INAUDIBLE]? >> Right, it's a bit noisier, it's flashier in there. And so, that's why I do the explaining out here. And then we'll go into there. >> So, the waters come through the nitrating tower. [CROSSTALK] And now it's coming in here and you're going to get that last little bits of solids out, down to the, you said, ten micron? >> Ten micron range. >> Ten micron range. >> Now we're down into the single digits, one to four parts per million of solids when we're done. >> So it's almost pure water, after this anyway. >> It's very clean water, but recognize it's not at all drinking water. >> Okay. >> Drinking water has higher standards than that by far. >> Right, and probably some chlorine and other things in it. >> Right, and the nature of the waste, that one part per million, is still originally from a waste product. And so, it's pretty unacceptable. >> Right, it's still bacterially, or other things in there. >> It is not at all meant for drinking whatsoever. And, it's good enough to go into a creek, not good enough to go into a glass. >> Probably good enough to water a farmer's field? >> Yes, that it would still be fine for irrigation. It's fine for that type of thing and for those types of environmental type uses, but not for drinking water. >> Not for drinking. Okay, all right. >> The lighting isn't terribly good. You may even want to turn on your light. So, here's the water coming in. And there, you can see the edge of the filters. >> Yeah the edge. They're coming edge on. >> [CROSSTALK] Has the Trivial Pursuit pie pieces. >> Okay. >> Six or eight of them in a thing. And so here's the edge of the filter. So, the water travels right to let through the fabric filter into the main channel And then this is the product coming out. >> Right. Here. Come on in guys. >> And you could see the water starts off pretty darn clean. >> Smells much better. >> And, the final product is even cleaner. And, here's the fabric filter so you could see what i was talking about. And, maybe we'll go out, we'll go out there. You get the ambient noise away. >> Wow it really does look like a plush carpet. >> So here's our fabric filter. So like I said it's sort of like a plush carpet here. The fibers lay down on top of each other to create the filter, and so when the water is being filtered it's flowing this way, through here, into the screen and then into the main channel and out. And then on back wash, the flow is the backwards flow that is in from the channel up to here. >> And they're all fiber stand up, so all the stuff comes off to that. >> Right. >> Very clever. >> It is, very clever, very smart, very reliable, which is what we look at for- >> Yeah, because if this plant goes down, everyone's toilet backs up. >> Right. So, we have to be able to do our work everyday throughout the year when it's 20 below outside, we still gotta work. When it's raining cats and dogs, when 110 out, we still gotta get to work. >> And the extra water you pick up from the rain going into the open tanks is relatively minor. What falls into the plant itself is relatively minor. The problem, we do end up having a lot of challenges because of sewers leaking and in particular, if people have connections from outside sources going into those sewers, we actually see flow rates that are much higher during storm events. >> Because the storm sewers are not supposed to come here, right? The storm sewer, like the water that comes off your roof that's just supposed to go into a river. >> Right. >> It's just rain water. But, somehow their systems are merged at least merge into the sanitary sewer somehow. >> There's some fraction of the storm water gets into the sanitary sewer but because of how much more water is associated with a storm I mean, a one inch rainstorm produced billions of gallons of water. >> Right. >> So, just a small fraction of that leaking into the sanitary sewer causes us a great deal of challenge during storm events. And so a large part of what we do is trying to fight that to keep the storm water out of the sanitary sewers. >> Because you really have no way to buffer. I mean, you have, how many, 12,000 gallons a minute, you can't say,oh hey I'll just store it for a little while. >> Actually, if you do, you can, but you need millions of gallons of storage. >> Right. >> And so that's what the deep tunnel project is in Chicago, for example. >> And we're actually considering putting in a lagoon for storing some of that flow as well. But, it's somewhat expensive, is very large, you're talking about- >> Well, then you have a giant lagoon on raw sewage. >> Which you then treat over the next couple of days after the storm- >> Sure. >> Is done. So, it's not like it's accumulated for a long period of time. >> That's right. >> It's called an equalization basin, because it equalizes out your flow. because the alternative is to just push it in through the plant. And what comes in has to go out and it has to go out that much faster. >> Which means that it's not as clean. >> It's more challenging to get to the same level. >> Right. >> We still try to treat it through the same steps, but we can't quite get to the exact same numbers. And so, there's some understanding of that on the regulatory end and during storms it's much more challenging. >> Well absolutely, I mean, the alternative is nothing we want. So we are so happy you do your job. [LAUGH] >> And one last step, we'll take you out to the creek to see the end. >> Yeah let's see where it comes out, okay. That is impressive. 12,000 gallons a minute of sewage in 12,000 gallons of 4 part per million, pretty darn clean water, coming out. >> And we get it done in 12 hours and that's it. >> 12 hours later. What's the name of this stream? >> This is the Saline branch of the Salt Fork. >> Saline branch of the Salt Fork River. >> Well done Rick. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> This is what you need to know about sanitary waste treatment. >> Very good. [MUSIC]
