Water Treatment Plant Visit Report

Date: 1st March 2016

Time: 9.30 a.m to 11.30 am
Group members:
Nur Izzati Nadhirah Binti Mokhtar (131303210)
Nurhakimah Binti Azhar (131303153)
Nur Afiqah Binti Zakaria

Lecturer: Dr. Ramachandran Kamath

Objectives :

1) To understand the importance of safe water supply to the community

2) To discuss the community health importance of the water treatment plant.
3) To describe the process of treating water.

Water is really important in our life. Any living creature needs water to
survive. Our diet and daily chores mainly involve water usage. Therefore, there
are a lot of water-borne disease can spread if the contaminated water is used.
Drinking contaminated water source especially, causing sickness and disease
from waterborne germs, such as Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Hepatitis A, Giardia
intestinalis, and other pathogens.
Drinking water sources are subject to contamination and require
appropriate treatment to remove disease-causing agents. In order to ensure the
society stay is the best shape of health and to provide the clean water
continuously, the water needs to be treated. It is best to take preventive measures
than to treat later on.
Definition
Any process that makes water more acceptable for a specific end-use,
which may be drinking, industry, irrigation , river flow maintenance, water
recreation or many other uses. Water treatment should remove existing
water contaminants or so reduce their concentration that their water becomes fit
for its desired end-use, which may be safely returning used water to the
environment.
Aim
As far as possible to degrade the C, N and P compounds contained in the
waste water, remove them from the waste water (by adsorption and absorption)
or to convert them into simpler, less harmful compounds in the sewage plant.
Treated waste water should be optically clear and no longer contain any
substances which are harmful to nature or people.

Bearing the aim and definition of water treatment, on 1st March 2016, we
went to Water Treatment Plant located in Udupi to witness the process.

Process Of Water Treatment

1. Cascade Aereator
Water is mixed with oxygen to
allow decomposition of waste
substance by the
microorganism present in the
water.

2. Clarifloculator
Here the sedimentation process
started. The process takes 2-4
hours. Alum ( a chemical
substance ) is added in which it
will bind with the impurities and
allow them to settle down

3. Sand Filtration Bed

There are 6 levels of filtration
with different filtration pore
sizes. The final beds will
produce clear water and
collected in the tank. There is
air blower to provide
backpressure in cleaning the
filter bed.

4. Chlorination
The clear water collected is
pumped to other centre for
chlorination.

Figure 1: Source of
water

Figure 2 : Cascade
Aereator

Figure 3: Water from

aereator flowing to
clarifloculator

Figure 5 : Clarifloculator

Figure 6: Sand
filtration bed

Figure 7: Clear water

after sand filtration

Conclusion
Water plays a very important role in human life, whether for daily routine
purpose or human health. This field visit made us aware about the quality of
water since it may affect the human health especially. There are various
processes for the water treatment to ensure that the water is safe for daily
consumption and routine since there are organisms which are transmitted via
water that may cause diarrhea, for example bacteria, parasites and virus. In
Manipal, there are 2 seasons which are rainy season and non-rainy season.
During the non-rainy season, the water will be supplied to general populations
for alternate days. Hence, they have to be prepared during the non-water supply
day. Moreover, this field trip made us realised that it is not easy to supply the
water directly from the main supply to the people. Thus, thanks to the
responsible party and the workers who invested in this project to ensure the
health and convenience of the people in Manipal.