On Wednesday, September 16th Wastewater 101 spent the evening at the Blutcher Poole Wastewater Treatment Facility in Bloomington, Indiana. It is always a pleasure when we go to Bloomington – either Blutcher Poole or Dillman Road plants – because they are so eager to participate and learn something different. This time we discussed The Microlife of Activated Sludge utilizing both a Power Point presentation and hands-on microscopic work. It was great to see people other than lab techs want to look under the microscope and to suddenly truly understand that what they do in the plant actually centers on these microscopic organisms that are the indicators for what bacteria are present. Hope to see them again soon.
On September 15th and September 22nd Barb Smith of Wastewater 101 was in Michigan City (not the penitentiary), Indiana presenting the Certification Review Course with personnel from the Michigan City Sanitary District Water Reclamation Facility. The attendees were studying for their certification or needed contact hours or both. The class was held in the basement of City Hall in the Emergency Operations room, since it was designed for training it was a fantastic location. It was decided by Michigan City MSD to break the 2 day course up by a week to allow time for all the information to be assimilated. In between days they had homework (in the form of quizzes) to keep the information learned in class fresh in their minds. I was pretty impressed with these students as they knew quite a few answers to in class questions. I was also happy when they asked questions about something I just explained that they didn’t quite understand. When that happens I know they are paying attention. After the session on the 22nd I was invited back to the plant for a brief tour of the facility. Mr. Milorad Milatovic, Water Reclamation Superintendent, took his time at the end of a long day to explain the flow patterns and answered my many questions. As I looked around the plant I could tell it was an older facility that has seen many upgrades, but you could tell that it is being taken care of. I was very impressed with the thought put into the stormwater retention tanks along with the modifications done in-plant. The activated sludge was a beautiful chocolate brown with negligible foam. Mr. Milatovic explained the aeration basins have both coarse and fine bubble diffusers. So all this is great – but what about the final product? Well I have to tell you it looked fantastic. We even went to the final discharge point in the creek and it looked great. Job well done by all involved at the Michigan City Water Reclamation Facility. It was a pleasure being there and I hope to be back in the future.