Thursday, January 10, 2008

Computerization comes to Valley Falls water plant

by Clarke Davis

The Valley Falls water plant has gone high tech.

Gone are a lot of the valves, faucets, and switches that used to turn on pumps and direct the flow of water.

Public Works Superintendent Daryl Courter can now view a computer monitor on which is mapped the primary components. While the system is timed to run automatically, he can turn on or off any number of pumps and can nearly run the entire plant from the computer’s keyboard.

The plant is nearing completion of a $680,000 renovation that included updating a number of components along with adding the computerized upgrades.

The visual on the computer shows Courter the river and its two pumps, the settling basin and its pumps, and the water level in the clear well and both water towers.

The plant runs about 12 hours a day to produce 180,000 gallons of drinkable water and the available technology monitors the process the entire time.

The most important aspect of the information on the computer screen is the read outs of turbidity in the water through the various stages, the ph factor or acidity, and the chlorine mixture among other things.

If something goes wrong anywhere throughout the system, the computer calls his cell phone so he can respond.

Last week he was reviewing the results on the screen when he was notified of a problem with a chlorine tester.

“I have to clean it and if that doesn’t work I’ll replace the testing unit,” he said.

“We have testers that test the testers here,” Courter said.

Four samples each month are sent to a state laboratory for testing, also.

There are set points along the system telling it how much water to pump and where to pump it at any given time. Water from the Delaware River is pumped to the settling basin when it reaches a certain level. Here the water gets its first treatment using ploymers to gather, or flock together, the particles in the water, sending the cleaner water across the street to the plant.

Here it goes through two more settling basins with chemical treatment before being put through two filtering systems. From here it goes to the undergound clear well and is pumped to the city’s north water tower.

Water is then pumped from the north tower to the south tower as needed.

The recent improvements include three new pumps, changing the chlorine contact basin, cleaning the sedimentation pond and the clear well, changing the water towers from telephone to radio frequency, replacing the heaters at the plant, and lots of new electrical work.

Courter said the five-year plan includes serving the neighborhood along Oak Street with water from the south tower. He said that tower currently lacks residents to serve and it will improve water pressure to that area.

The superintendent said the plant has been running longer than usual recently and he hopes there aren’t any breaks in the line going undiscovered.

City workers did not read meters in December because of the ice storm. Residents received estimated bills instead.

It is during these trips to the many residences that workers look for and often find leaks and line breaks.

Courter said he is anxious to get the plant cleaned up and ready for public show, but first the city has to construct a small building on the exterior of the plant that will house a chemical called powder activated carbon.

The chemical is applied to the water to improve taste and odor, but the fine, black powder has also coated the interior of the plant.

“I want to get it cleaned up,” he said. “This should be a showplace.”

Courter has been employed by the city since 1984. He has been certified to operate a water plant since 1996 and took over following the retirement of Paul Burns in 2003.