CSI- VALUABLE LESSONS IN FORENSICS IN WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT

It is very exciting when you are called to determine what causes a wastewater treatment plant to malfunction. Sometimes the reasons are too obvious, but sometimes the cause may be complex and require some sort of detective work such as in the popular television series “Criminal Scene Investigation” or CSI. There are evidences every where and it is up to us the wastewater forensic team to determine the cause and put it right!

When a wastewater treatment plant fails it is providing us with various valuable clues to why the process fails. Analyses of the evidences from physical, chemical and microbiological observations will be able to inform us why the WWTP fails.

To repair the WWTP without doing proper clinical studies of the stuck WWTP is not scientific, time and money wasting and would not lead to the proper solution.( Unless chances in a million you are lucky enough!)

WWTP failures do not occur just like that. There must be a reason for the failures to occur. Usually failures take time to occur, and if the WWTP is monitored closely you will see signs of the impending failure. To this purpose records or data of the WWTP are very important.

Biological WWTP is a very complex system. Almost anything could go wrong, so proper approach in determining the cause of failure is important to treat the WWTP

The approach to determine the cause of malfunction must be approached with an open mind.

The first step in the investigation often involved digging into the background and history of the WWTP, discussions with the production and engineering staff.

Water audit and process flow in and out of the WWTP are essential

Site visits are very important to determine the real situation. Only a trained eye or experience will allow you to detect the anomalies that could have contributed to the failure.

Analyses of the past and present water treatment operation data are essential

Sometimes not only in situ or separate analyses are required, experiments or laboratory studies are needed to confirm the cause.



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