Your Water is Happy Here
You want to quit throwing away plastic bottles, don’t you? Which means drinking tap water. I want to help, so I got a tour of Nashville’s Omohundro Water Treatment Plant from Scott Potter, director of Metro Water Services.
Situated right on the Cumberland River, the plant has great real estate, and is itself a work of art, with a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.
Some of the original workings are still in use, including a monstrous 1873 valve that pumps water from the river and into pools.
Once in those pools, the water gets a chemical shot designed to make all the bits of grit and algae clump together. In late summer the water is naturally so much clearer coming out of the Cumberland that it’s hard to get the clumping action to start.
(In warm weather, algae can grow in the river, and, if it weren’t addressed, would cause the water to taste funny. Metro Water Services adds carbon to prevent this problem.)
The water settles a while and flows into another pool, where honeycomb-shaped inserts cause the water to flow in a very straight line, which forces more particles to settle out.
At this point in the process, Potter says, “the water almost meets regulations--it needs one more step.” A sparkling result comes from guiding the water through filters modeled on the Roman baths at Bath.
Each filter contains varying grades of sand, and when it reaches the last bottom of the filter, you’ve got beverage-quality water.
That’s the process in a nutshell, and there’s lots more detail available at the Metro water website: including a water quality report and more detail about the treatment process.
Comments
I've always been curious what this place looked like inside, and it's nothing like what I imagined. Thanks for the peek, Nicki.
Posted 09/22/2008 at 02:11:16 PMIt's a spectacular place and until Sept 11 was open to the public. There's even a public park out front. It's really worth going -- maybe if you offer to take the whole first grade class...
Posted 09/22/2008 at 02:37:21 PMDo me a favor: Have those guys call HVUD and reveal their secrets. Out here in West Bellevue the water reeks of chlorine and often times a vinyl plastic odor too.
In order to drink the stuff here I use this first:
http://www.newwaveenviro.com/premium-10-stage-water-filter-p-86.html
Posted 09/22/2008 at 07:30:11 PMThe water is not happy there. That's the problem. Your water filter is making it happy.
Posted 09/23/2008 at 08:58:55 AM"The water is not happy there."
Understandable. I'm never happy when I'm in Bellevue either.
Posted 09/23/2008 at 10:51:21 AMwell, here in brenthood the tap water is undrinkable. i guess we pay extra for that...
Posted 09/24/2008 at 08:49:57 AMFluffernutter: That's a stupid thing to say. Water supplies are a municipal service. There are federal standards that have to be met which, by my suggestion, are not in compliance it seems. Your logic and humour fails me.
Posted 09/24/2008 at 09:35:59 AMScott - no problemo, dood. I like it when you are not here either, douchebag.
Posted 09/24/2008 at 09:37:04 AMClaudia:
http://www.brentwood-tn.org/
water department quote:
"Water is purchased from the Harpeth Valley Utility District and Metro Nashville."
Welcome to the club.
Posted 09/24/2008 at 09:39:26 AMI asked about compliance while I was at the plant. There were, I believe, a couple of noncompliance incidents last year that involved late paperwork rather than the water itself. There's a water quality report here that I read all the way through, but felt it was too much detail for a blog post.
http://www.nashville.gov/water/qualityrpt.htm
If you're interested, you can probably get copies of the noncompliance documentation.
Posted 09/24/2008 at 10:02:16 AMegyptian lacker - get up on the wrong side of bed this morning? yowza!
Posted 09/24/2008 at 10:10:06 AMI've always thought the tap water in Bellevue was some of the best in the state. And I've had people at my house that live in different parts of the state (or different states altogether) tell me they can't believe how good the tap water is here.
Posted 10/02/2008 at 10:13:55 AM