Where Does My Poop Go?

Yesterday, the Bears and the Wolves went on a field trip.  It was very interesting and smelly.  We went to the sewer treatment plant.  It was really, really gross.  But really, really cool at the same time.  I forgot to take my camera, so I used my phone instead.  Let's see how much I remember about what I learned...

 So here is where the water from our homes enters the facility.

 It goes inside this building and they pull out all the junk that gets flushed down the toilet.  Actually, one thing that he told us that was important was about those wipes we use to clean and sanitize our homes.  You shouldn't flush them down the toilet.  They don't decompose and they have to be pulled out of the machines. The same thing goes for the ones you use to mop the floor.

 This is outside building one.

 Then he took us to the final process.  The water gets cleaned and people down stream from us get to use the water we just cleaned.

 It's been manicured beautifully.

 The water gets aerated and chlorinated and made ready for use.

 This one is being emptied for cleaning and maintenance.

 In this tank, they use a bug that if likes to eat the sludge and makes it all come together and sinks to the bottom where it is vacuumed out by those white circles thingies.  It's empty for maintenance and cleaning at the moment.

 This is a full tank.

 Our facility is powered by the methane gas that is created by the process of cleaning the water.  Apparently, we've been green since the late '70s.

 This is the machine that powers the plant.  It was loud.

I really couldn't hear everything that was said on this tour because it was loud in places.

 This machine is recreating the process the water goes through as it comes out of the mountain and goes over the rocks in the streams.

 Those white things in that circle are rocks.  They do the same thing as above, but with actual rocks.  They can only stack the rocks 7 feet high, but the tank above is 24 feet high.

 The very far circle that is dark brown is full of rocks that are cleaning the water.  The middle one is rocks that are just starting to grow moss on them and will do a better job of cleaning when they look more like the other one.  The white one isn't being used and is full of new rocks.

 This machine takes water out and creates fertilizer.  This fertilizer can only be used on farmland.  They used to allow for home use, but the neighbors complained about the smell.  They down graded and only allow the farmers to take it now because it's less smelly for the neighbors.

Apparently, it's a bad idea to go into the sewer.  There is no oxygen down there and so the workers have to be specially trained to go down there.  This is there dummy they use for training so they don't die on the job.

They have to check the oxygen levels before they can go down.  Otherwise, the man who goes down first will pass out, and the other guy with him will jump into save him and pass out, too.  Then they both die.  That sounds like a great job.

So, that was your tour of the Sewer Treatment Plant.  Any one can go there and take a tour, but now you don't have to smell the place.  If you want to know more, check out their website:  http://www.ndsd.org/  We were going to go to a park after to eat lunch, but it started to rain and get really windy, so we just went home.  That's okay.  I got a lot of painting done.  I'm almost done.  So did I paint today so that I could finish or be that much closer to being done?  Nope.  Not at all.