Students from two classes at Coggin Elementary took a field trip to the City of Brownwood’s wastewater treatment plant to learn a little more about the water cycle on Tuesday afternoon.
According to Coggin Elementary science teacher Holly Fells, the students have just finished studying the water cycle over the past six weeks, which ended Friday, February 15th. Her class and another teacher, Mrs. Lisa Christiansen’s class participated in the field trip. Coggin Principal Todd Lewis and Ms. Hernandez were also present to help with the trip.
“I wanted to get the students to understand that it’s the same water that we are drinking that was here in dinosaur times,” said Fells (pictured above with one of her students).
City of Brownwood Assistant Division Director of Public Works David Harris led a tour of the wastewater facility, taking the students through the plant, station to station, explaining step by step just how sewage gets turned into water that is clear and almost clean enough to drink. Approximately 2.5 million gallons of wastewater are treated at the plant each day, said Harris. In extreme circumstances, such as the flood of 2002, the plant can treat up to 10 million gallons of wastewater per day.
Students were educated on the processes of using bacteria, aeration, and chlorination to help make the water clear again before it is released from the wastewater plant in Brownwood into the Pecan Bayou which feeds into the Colorado River and eventually is used by other cities south of Brownwood as a source of water.
At the end of the process, the water, according to Harris, is required to be cleaner than the water in the river where is it being released. He also explained that there are hundreds of locations where the plant has automated safety checks that alert staff if the plant malfunctions or if water samples don’t meet certain standards.
Harris explained that the cities of Brownwood, Early, Brookesmith, Zephyr, Bangs, Santa Anna currently use water from Lake Brownwood. Because of the drought conditions in the area, he explained to the students that the City of Brownwood is considering building a wastewater reuse plant which would use the water from this wastewater plant and further treat it in order to give the city an additional source of water.
“The water released from this plant is 20 times cleaner than the water from Lake Brownwood, which is the water we treat to use for drinking water now,” said Harris. “We would take this water; pump it about a mile away, near East Elementary, to be treated for us as drinking water.”
The water released from the plant into these rivers is used as a source for cities such as Goldthwaite and others south, and that it eventually reaches Austin. “So these cities are already drinking our wastewater after it is treated and filtered in their water plants,” Harris said.
Water reused at the wastewater treatment plant for their grounds and cleaning saves 16 million gallons of water, and helps to conserve drinking water and conserve Lake Brownwood, Harris said.
In building the new wastewater reuse plant, Harris explained to the students that 550 million gallons of water per year would be reused, providing an alternative source of water and provide an additional treatment plant in case of disasters such as a tornado.
The wastewater reuse treatment plant design and funding have been approved through the state and are waiting on Brownwood City Council approval before the construction can begin. Harris stated that the plant will cost approximately $8 million and will take about 60 weeks to build if the council moves forward with approval.
Student look down from the catwalk above the tanks where the waste water is mixed with bacteria and oxygen.
Harris leads students across another tank where sludge is separated.
Harris talks to the students in an underground pump room.
Harris shows students clear water where the treatment process ends with dechlorination before it is released into the Pecan Bayou.
