Water Company Improving Quality Of Water
By: Meagan Fitzgerald
Updated: September 3, 2009
Greater Ouachita Water Company is on a mission to get their customers better water.
Doil Nelson is a Facility Manager at Greater Ouachita Water Company and he said, "The water comes out the Sparta looking about like tea."
Nelson says the brown water from the Sparta Aquifer used to be treated with chlorine and given to customers. But, the EPA found that the mix of the stuff that make the water brown and the chlorine would create chemicals called THM's or Trihelomethanes. Too many THM's can be harmful over a long period of time and could cause cancer. Now the water takes a different path and is treated to cut the levels of THM's in half.
Nelson said, "The water comes out of the ground and goes through the meter there and it comes up here where this gray line is this gray line is called a static mixer it's where we add our polymer which is a filter aid and it continues to mix in this gray line it goes up into each one of these filters."
Nelson says the polymers creates the particles in the water to become a lot bigger and stick together so when they go through the filters they're able to trap things like particles and tannins which is essentially remove the color."
Then the water is treated with chlorine and stored.
Nelson said, "After the water is filtered it will leave the filter and be put in the 1/2 a million ground tank."
Then it's delivered to your home.
Doil Nelson is a Facility Manager at Greater Ouachita Water Company and he said, "The water comes out the Sparta looking about like tea."
Nelson says the brown water from the Sparta Aquifer used to be treated with chlorine and given to customers. But, the EPA found that the mix of the stuff that make the water brown and the chlorine would create chemicals called THM's or Trihelomethanes. Too many THM's can be harmful over a long period of time and could cause cancer. Now the water takes a different path and is treated to cut the levels of THM's in half.
Nelson said, "The water comes out of the ground and goes through the meter there and it comes up here where this gray line is this gray line is called a static mixer it's where we add our polymer which is a filter aid and it continues to mix in this gray line it goes up into each one of these filters."
Nelson says the polymers creates the particles in the water to become a lot bigger and stick together so when they go through the filters they're able to trap things like particles and tannins which is essentially remove the color."
Then the water is treated with chlorine and stored.
Nelson said, "After the water is filtered it will leave the filter and be put in the 1/2 a million ground tank."
Then it's delivered to your home.
