Global Seminars: Drinking water treatment day

Monday, June 6, 2016

Drinking water treatment day

We spent the day at the drinking water treatment plant in Trondheim.
Today was our first day of class with Ray Hozalski and Cynthia Halle. In the morning, we spent time at the drinking water treatment plant.



This lake provides the drinking water for all of Trondheim. We learned that there are many restrictions on this lake, such as prohibition of motorized vehicles, dogs, and swimming, in order to minimize the amount of treatment necessary. We went down to the inlet tunnel system, where the water is taken from the lake and transported to the treatment plant. There are a series of screens in place at this inlet, to filter out the larger particles from the water before it is treated.



We also got to take a look at the old screening system, and had the opportunity to walk through a cavern to reach it.



After seeing the inlet we traveled to the treatment plant, where we watched a video (in Norwegian) about the treatment process. Don't worry, the process was also explained to us in english, so we are learning something! We got to tour the plant, as well as take some samples of the raw lake water and the final treated water, which we used in the afternoon lab.



While we were there, we also tested the amount of Chlorine in the water both before and after treatment.



In the afternoon, we had a lab session, in which we created some bacteria cultures of the water samples we took at the treatment plant today. We will be analyzing these samples further on Thursday. Additionally, we went to various locations in Trondheim to test the tap water and ensure it matched up with the treated water sample that we had taken directly from the plant. ​​​​