Drinking water supplies in the United States are the safest in the world but there is a high potential of that to get contaminated causing sickness and diseases from waterborne germs such as Cryptosporidium, E. Coli, Hepatitis A, Giardia intestinalis and other pathogens. Water contamination is primarily caused by the discharge of untreated wastewater from enterprises. The waste from various enterprises, which contains varying levels of contaminants, is dumped into rivers or other water resources. The wastewater may have a high proportion of organic and inorganic contaminants at the initial discharge. Industries generate wastewater as a result of fabrication processes, processes dealing with paper and pulp, textiles, chemicals, and from various streams such as cooling towers, boilers, and production lines.[1] As the drinking water is subjected to such contamination, appropriate treatment measures need to be adopted to remove such disease-causing germs and agents. So, water treatment is any process adopted to improve the quality of water for making it appropriate for drinking by the Public. Apart from drinking pure water, good quality water is also used in industrial water supply, irrigation, river flow maintenance, etc.

Water Treatment

The selection of wastewater treatment systems is depending on a number of factors:

  • The degree to which a method is necessary to raise the wastewater quality to a permissible level
  • The control method’s flexibility
  • The process’s cost
  • The process’s environmental compatibility
  • The volume of water to treat per day (capacity)
  • Type of waste and purpose/usage of the treated water

In today’s era, the most common steps in water treatment used by community water systems include:

  • Coagulation and Flocculation
  • Sedimentation
  • Filtration
  • Disinfection

How Miami-dade water is made safe for drinking by the public (miamidade.gov):

  • Approximately 330 million gallons per day (mgd) are withdrawn from the Biscayne Aquifer through wells extending an average of 80 feet
    below the ground’s surface to meet the needs of the community.
  • As water travels over the surface of the land or through the ground, it dissolves naturally-occurring minerals and can pick up
    substances resulting from the presence of animals or from human activity.
  • To ensure that Miami-Dade water is safe to drink, WASD adheres to and, in many cases surpasses, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
    (EPA) regulations regarding the contaminants in water provided by public water systems.
  • Highly trained microbiologists, chemists, and water treatment specialists conduct or supervise more than 320,000 analyses of water
    samples each year. Water quality samples are collected throughout the county and tested regularly. Samples include untreated and treated
    water taken at our facilities, sample sites throughout the service areas, and at customers’ homes. These tests are overseen by various
    regulatory agencies on a federal, state, and local level.
  • The Hialeah and Preston Plants serve residents who live north of Southwest Eighth Street up to the Miami-Dade/Broward line. The
    Alexander Orr Plant serves residents south of Southwest Eighth Street to Southwest 248 Street. These three regional water plants supply
    treated water to a common distribution system. The South Dade Water Supply System is comprised of five smaller water treatment plants
    that serve residents south of S.W. 248 Street in the unincorporated areas of the County. These five plants pump treated water into a
    common distribution system, which is separate from the main system.

Water Treatment features: Fluoridation:

  1. The Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department’s three regional water plants fluoridate the water during the treatment process. Fluoride is a compound that contains fluorine, Fluoridation is endorsed by the American Association of Pediatric Dentistry and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which considers “community water fluoridation as one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.”
  2. Whereas fluoridated drinking water provides only about one-third to one-half the amount of fluoride that an individual should be getting daily, it is a benefit that cuts across socio-economic dividers, offering everyone equal health benefits.

Facts about fluoridation in tap water:
Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral found in both surface water and groundwater.

  • Since 1958, the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department have adjusted the existing naturally occurring fluoride level of 0.2 parts per million found in the groundwater to a range of .6 to .8 parts per million as a dental health benefit, which is still significantly less than the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum level of 4 parts per million.
  • Fluoride helps teeth resist decay by strengthening the protective layer of tooth enamel and can reverse newly formed cavities.
  • Community water fluoridation is supported by most major national and international health service organizations. Supporters include the American Dental Association, American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, World Health Organization, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • Fluoridation does not change the taste, odor, or appearance of your water.
  • No evidence exists that fluoridated water at the levels prescribed for human consumption is harmful to animals or pets.

References:
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/public/water_treatment.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_treatment
[3] https://www.miamidade.gov/global/water/water-supply-and-treatment.page

Water Transportation

Water transportation is the intentional movement of water over large distances. Methods of transportation fall into three categories:

  • Aqueducts, which include pipelines, canals, tunnels, and bridges
  • Container shipment, which includes transport by tank truck, tank car, and tankship.
  • Towing, where a tugboat is used to pull an iceberg or a large water bag along behind it.
  • Waterway transportation is the most cost-effective method of moving large, perishable, and heavy products across long distances. This method of travel is mainly used to carry people, as well as perishable and non-perishable items together referred to as cargo. Water transport also has a very low operating cost. It has the greatest load capacity and is thus best suited to transporting huge quantities of heavy items across long distances.

Advantages of Water Transportation:

  • Highly economical
  • Large storage capacity for transportation
  • Safe mode of Transport based on the weather forecast
  • Environmentally friendly

Disadvantages of Water Transportation:

  • Sluggish and Time-consuming
  • Not reliable in consideration of arrival time
  • Not Appropriate for Perishable Goods
  • Weather dependency

References:
[1] http://www.navata.com/cms/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-water-transportation/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_transportation#Major_water_transportation_projects

Water Autoionization

The self-ionization of water (also autoionization of water, and auto-dissociation of water) is an ionization reaction in pure water or in an aqueous solution, in which a water molecule, H2O, deprotonates (loses the nucleus of one of its hydrogen atoms) to become a hydroxide ion, OH−. The hydrogen nucleus, H+, immediately protonates another water molecule to form hydronium, H3O+. It is an example of auto-protolysis and exemplifies the amphoteric nature of water. Water can undergo autoionization to form H3O+ and OH- ions.

References:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ionization_of_water
[2]https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry/acids-and-bases-topic/acids-and-bases/a/water-autoionization-and-kw