MEC407 wrote:Fantastic photos!
What is this thing that looks like a germ culture growing in a giant Petri dish? http://samayotte.com/PAR_Rumford.large/ ... ord_15.jpg
Wastewater treatment plant area. It's called aerating. Each brown spot in the photo is a pump tossing the sewage many feet into the air.
Aerating:
One of the first steps that a water treatment facility can do is to just shake up the sewage and expose it to air. This causes some of the dissolved gases (such as hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs) that taste and smell bad to be released from the water. Wastewater enters a series of long, parallel concrete tanks. Each tank is divided into two sections. In the first section, air is pumped through the water.
As organic matter decays, it uses up oxygen. Aeration replenishes the oxygen. Bubbling oxygen through the water also keeps the organic material suspended while it forces 'grit' (coffeegrounds, sand and other small, dense particles) to settle out. Grit is pumped out of the tanks and taken to landfills.