While it is the vital work of our small governments to provide safe drinking water and sanitation solutions for all residents, sometimes municipalities have to contend with other environmental issues that have ramifications to the whole environment.
As surface-water problems continue to crop up frequently in the news, municipalities should consider how investing in the right equipment and processes can prevent some of these environmental issues.
Perhaps the most common environmental issue across the nation is the problem of harmful algal blooms. Blooms occur when untreated sewage overflows into surface water tables. There are an estimated 20,000 – 75,000 sewer overflows each year in this country. These blooms do more than create a problem for local fishermen. Cities like Toledo, Ohio, for example, lost access to drinking water for a summer. Long Island saw a recent fish kill off its coast and the Gulf of Mexico has a notorious “dead zone” fed by contaminants like phosphorus and nitrogen found in untreated sewage.
Some municipalities deal with storm water, industrial waste and human waste as separate streams. For some, though, the waste goes through a single pipe for treatment and disposal. There are nearly 800 communities with this sewage structure, the majority of which are located in the Northeast and Great Lakes region. Storm surges challenge these systems, making it imperative for municipalities to address the quality of their pipeline, equipment, mixers and treatment stations. A chemical flash mixer for water treatment, for example, needs to be of high quality and should handle both large and small flow. Municipalities who feel that upgrading their equipment is beyond their budgets should consider how energy savings of up to 90% using a low pressure drop like those of Komax mixers compare to the cost of running a mechanical mixer.
Why not see how Komax can have a dramatically positive effect on your municipality’s infrastructure?