Quick question for some knowledgeable folks. We have ferrous chloride at my place and we have a couple storage tanks. At the bottom of the tanks is a foot of black mud. Any idea what it could be? My boss says we can dump it down the drain…
Having a hard time deciding to do Instrumentation Tech which I will go to community college and get an associates or get a grade 2 and hopefully I can get OIT as an operator. Hope others can chime in.
Mama mallard and four chicks made a home in a disused clarifier earlier this summer. Four became one, then we didn't see any for several weeks. Pumped the rainwater out thinking the last one died and mama had left. Lo and behold, the chick is still alive and growing fast.
Hey everyone,
I recently got hired on as a cleaner/labourer for a company that manufactures/services hydrodynamic cavitation equipment for industrial and municipal water applications.
While my daily tasks right now are focused around shop cleanliness and basic maintenance support, my goal is to get deeply well-versed in the technology, field operations, and reactor mechanics so I can build a long-term career here.
I’ve been reading up on the underlying fluid dynamics (bubble collapse mechanisms, radical generation, shear rates), but am technically experienced enough to understand that paper theory often looks very different from what operators actually deal with on-site.
I created this post to get some real-world feedback from people working in the field.
Reactor Geometry & Preferences: What’s your experience or preference regarding different cavitation reactor types (e.g., Venturi tubes, orifice plates, vortex/swirl chambers, or high-shear Rotational/rotor-stator units)? Do you find static units (Venturi/orifice) suffer heavily from clogging, scale buildup, or maintanence costs? Do moving parts in rotational units create significant mechanical overhead? More or less, wondering about owner/operator preferences.
Primary Use Cases: Where are you seeing cavitation systems deployed most effectively in your facilities? Sludge dewatering/cell disruption, VFA generation, Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP) for persistent organics, or scale/fouling mitigation?
Maintenance & Wear: What are the most common failure points or high-maintenance components you see on the systems you use? How bad is cavitation-induced erosion on internal components over long run times?
ROI & Reality: Does the energy input vs. throughput performance actually live up to the hype
Any insights or technical advice is very much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Found this cute gopher snake sunning himself in a high traffic area of the plant, so we moved him out of harm's way
This frisky lil fella slipped the fence but we corralled it into a cooler and popped him back in his pond. Shall be known as Michelangelo hence forth.
This little guy was helping me check my TSS this morning
We are a newly installed ww plant. Our aerobic zones are developing this thick foam blanket on top that even with spraying daily will not dissolve on its own. Anyone experienced this before? I’m a newer operator just trying to see if anyone’s dealt with this before. There is no skimmer arm on top to clear it either.
So many helpful people in this sub reddit i appreciate all the tips!! Excited for the future B exam :eyes:
Hello fellow operators of Pennsylvania. What’s your going rate as a licensed Class A operator?
I need a high-ish range handheld/bench meter to verify our online hach probes. It looks like the high range Hach DR300 only goes up to about 10mg/L, but our residuals can get up to 20 in our reclaim system.
Our district uses the Palintest Kemio, which is a cool little system that uses strips instead of powder/other reagents. BUT, their customer service has been abysmal. Our test strips are expired(and using the wrong range) and I’ve been trying to order some for almost 2 months now with no luck. I received a quote within the first two days, but there were errors and I asked for them to be corrected, since I could not submit what I had received. Since then, silence from the company. I’ve emailed the quote sender and their general sales email multiple times with no response.
If I can find a third party kemio reagent vendor, I’ll take it. But I wouldn’t mind going with a different brand that has more trustworthy customer service.
I’ve also been eyeballing the Hanna colorimeters, which I know are fairly trusted in the reef/fishkeeping community. But I’m not sure how well they stand up against more commercial brands
For those of you in wastewater, if you were going back to school for an associate’s degree, what would you get and why?
Looking for opinions from people actually working in the field, especially anyone who has moved into a supervisory/management position.
TIA
So I'm currently working in southern Ontario and looking at municipal job postings. Lots of them seem to include on call rotations, which are fine with me, but some specify that you have to remain in an 'immediate vicinity' to your work center. My question is how far is this range?? Do you have to live within 5-10 km of your shop? Immediate vicinity just seems like a close range.
Hey gang,
I was wondering if any fellow operators have been employed by a small municipal authority when it was bought out or closed down. I’ve recently taken on the role of assistant shop steward and I was ready to kick to door down to get our wages up. It turns out the plant is basically broke and at this point essential pumps are just not getting replaced, raises aren’t coming. It’s been a running joke since I got here over 4 years ago that we were going to be bought out and turned into a pump station, now I’m seeing actual concern from the execs. Anyway have you been down this road before? What did it look like for your plant as it was winding down? I’m focused on my career regardless but I’m curious as to what a dying plant looks like day to day.
Central Jersey
How much can one make in California if its one of the major plants?
Just curious as to what people have used as study material for there exams in Ontario, Canada for the above Class 1 exams?
Not currently in the field myself. But looking to write my class 1 for each sooner than later. Any recommendations would be of great help. Thanks
We treat E coli with UV . We generally average non detectable to 10 mpn / 100 ml.
A high sample would be 50ish.
After a modest rain event we popped a 11,200 . We got results on Friday afternoon. Lab was closed.
Hoping for a typo .
We usually handle twice the flow we recorded just fine.
Not sure how to handle.
After graduating with a business degree 2 years ago, feeling unsatisfied with the corporate environment and hybrid/remote work, I decided to go for a job as an OIT. A couple months of the municipal interview process later, I have gotten the job in a advanced water reclamation plant. I’m so excited for this new path and would love to connect with people who have similar stories or can give me tips on what to expect as I get started.
Anyone has ever seen this or have field experience?
https://www.worldwaterworks.com/technologies/www-indense-hydrocyclone-wasting/