When Athens residents pay their monthly water bill, they are funding an intricate and high-tech water sanitation process which cost local government nearly $54 million in expenditures in the 2013 fiscal year, according to public budget documents.
And these costs are increasing.
Clarke County’s water and sewer fund increased 31.9 percent from 2012 to 2013. The severe drought beginning in 2007 raised public awareness of the costs, both financially and environmentally, of excessive water consumption and insufficient storage. Since then, more resolute attempts to conserve water have been implemented within water treatment and sewer plants and beyond.
As an attempt to decrease demand, residential and non-residential water rates changed from a flat charge for every gallon used to a four-tier rate system, which charges more money per gallon as the amount of gallons increases, explained Athens-Clarke County Public Utilities Water Conservation Coordinator Marilyn Hall.
“The overall goal of our office was to reduce demand of water by 20 percent over the next few years,” she said. “We’ve already met that goal.”
Hall said there has been a “culture of conservation” throughout the Athens area since the previous devastating drought.
Certified operation specialists work alongside water conservation experts at the J.G. Beacham Water Treatment Plant, updated and expanded in 2009, to ensure water quality, monitor water storage, and offer water and money-saving advice to consumers.
A 90-minute tour of this local water treatment plant sheds light on the multi-step procedure that generates safe, clean water to more than 90 percent of the city’s population.
Operations Coordinator William Cottrell guides free tours of the water treatment facility, giving the public an intimate look at what happens to their water before they turn on the kitchen sink.
Raw water is pulled through pipelines from the North and Middle Oconee River or the Bear Creek Reservoir to the plant, which can treat up to 35 million gallons of water daily. Chemicals like aluminum potassium sulfate, or alum, and potassium permanganate are added to the raw water as it flows into the rapid mix chamber, a deep cylinder covered by a grate which allows those touring to examine the churning concoction from above.
Cottrell explained how the chemicals incite clumping of small particles like sand and clay into what he called “floc.” The murky water and floc mixture flows through small rectangular pools that have flocculators, or motorized mixers. As they continually mix within the pools, the clumps of floc adhere to one another, gradually becoming too heavy to flow with the water and ending their aquatic journey at the bottom of a settling basin.
The newly floc-less and evidently clearer water passes through a series of tube settlers, weirs and indoor and outdoor filters comprised of anthracite, a compact type of coal, and sand. This removes any remaining particles from the water.
Cottrell leads the tour on into the plant’s quality control lab, where water samples from various points in the filtration process are tested to determine pH, turbidity, and chemical content.
“We have hourly tests, or sometimes more frequent depending on what the water’s doing,” he explained.
The tour continues to the plant’s most recent addition — ultra-violet light reactors. Inside each of these reactors, 48 quartz bulbs emit 254 nanometers of UV light that kill any bacteria or viruses in the water.
At this point, the water enters what Cottrell calls “post-treatment”. Lime, chlorine and fluoride are added to the water, and it is pumped into a massive storage tank called the clearwell.
Finally, the plant’s finished product, clean water, is pumped into water storage tanks and other distribution systems.
The storage tanks, or water towers, hold the clean water until it is needed.
The Beacham plant operates all day, every day and uses $1 million in electricity annually, according to Cottrell.
Athens is currently in a level 1 drought, says Hall. This means soil moisture has not recovered from previous drought conditions.
But even more attempts outside of treatment plants are being made to conserve water.
Athens has implemented conservation programs like Rain Barrel Workshops, the Athens Green School Program and various children’s programs aimed at instilling responsible water-utilizing habits.