Wastewater 101 has been busy with training sessions across the northern part of the state this past week.
The week started in Gary, Indiana with Collection System Training. The Gary Sanitary District believes strongly in education and stresses certification for all their employees. The operators are expected to become certified through the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s wastewater operator’s examination. The sewer maintenance operators are expected to become certified through the Indiana Water Environment Association’s Collection System Committee’s collection system operator’s certification. On Monday and Tuesday class consisted of math, collection system basics and at the end of the day there were practice questions for the exam. Each day started with wastewater mathematics centering on conversions and continued with written problems at first things were pretty rough going, but by the end of the day, most of them understood and were able to work the problems. Collection system basics included acronyms, construction, safety, lift stations, cleaning, televising and finally troubleshooting. I want to wish all the staff that is taking the collection system test on April 24th in Ft. Wayne the best of luck.
Pictured to the right are the attendees from Monday’s session at the Gary Sanitary District (in no particular order): Arthur Gates, Easa Hamed, Michael Taliefero, Stephen Anderson, Ricky Spence, Derrick Edwards and Henry Bell.
Pictured to the right are the attendees from Tuesday’s session at the Gary Sanitary District (in no particular order): Hector Roldan, Kevin Lloyd, Daphane Staples, Mike Headen, Vincent Bateman, Jean Yves Jean Mardy, Pat Donovan, Jonathan Smith.
Wednesday found us in the city of Kokomo at the water pollution control facility discussing The Microlife of Activated Sludge. This session covered the microlife found in the activated sludge system. Discussion included the life cycle of bacteria including the bacteria involved in nitrification and denitrification. The course continued with the identification of the indicator microorganism groups of protozoa and metazoan and what plant conditions are indicated by the most predominance of amoeba, flagellates, free swimming & crawling ciliates, stalked ciliates, and rotifiers. The discussion portion of the session ended with troubleshooting. It was a pleasant surprise while discussing various problems and troubleshooting guides to find that Kokomo has engineered out many of the normal problems associated with over wasting, under aeration, excessive hydraulics and sludge digestion. The day ended with hands-on microscopic examination. I enjoyed watching the new employees digesting what I was talking about and the more experienced employees taking notes and considering suggestions. I hope to return to the Kokomo plant in the future.
Pictured from the Kokomo plant (in no particular order): Jennifer Whitticker, Barry Jolliffe, Nick Horton, Kevin Stout, Chris Cooper, Mark White, Sally Louke, Joshua McQueary, Mike McKinstry, Michael Mauk, Raymond Putman, Robin Merchant, Wilson Brinson and Jack Harrison.