Jan 2 2013
A recent lecture given by our director George Caamano at the ISRI Safety and Environmental Counseling Convention discussed stormwater chemistry and affordable treatment systems. He stressed that scrap yards are creating their own storm water problems by not running the proper tests on their storm water.
For instance, a particle distribution test to determine what size of contaminants are in a facility's water can save you thousands of dollars, and here's why:
Metals can appear as dust or fine particles. When first in contact with water, most particles will be large enough to filter. As filtration is by far the cheapest treatment option, this is ideal; however, a portion of the metals can dissolve too small to filter. If the water is filtered first, these remaining dissolved metals may then be treated using media or chemical treatment.
This is the case for all facilities with storm water limitations, not just scrap yards. Determining the size of particles in a given yard, and the amount of dissolved metals, is critical for determining the size, type, and cost of that yard's stormwater treatment systems. For instance, if a yard has primarily large particles, it may meet its effluent goals with simple filtration. If not, instead of spending money treating the initial contaminant concentration, it's possible the metals levels will be reduced by over 95% with just filtration. Because only 5% of the contaminants are left to treat, this means in terms of a treatment unit's footprint, initial cost, and maintenance, storm water can be treated for less.
With the opening of Remedy Water Treatment, Stormwater Online now has a laboratory geared specifically towards assisting customers with treating their water. With this recent expansion, it is able to offer the particle distribution experiment described above to all facilities looking to treat their storm water effectively and affordably. This experiment includes a full report that details particle size distribution analysis, including turbidity, copper, iron, and zinc measurements after each filtration size; as well as a picture of your water so you can see the improvement made at each filtration step.
Find out more information about this experiment and its benefits at swonline.org
If you'd like a digital copy of the ISRI stormwater chemistry lecture mentioned above for free, please email [email protected], or visit our website.
Source: http://swonline.org/