Warsaw Wastewater Utility celebrated Earth Day Tuesday with an open house.
Brian Davison, utilities superintendent, said the department used to do an Earth Day event “many years ago for two or three years” but restarted the event last year.
During the open house, people were able to take tours of the wastewater facility through the entire wastewater treatment process. The community also was able to participate in learning opportunities and a free lunch was provided.
As of about 12:30 p.m., Davison said he didn’t have a count of how many people had come through at the point, but staff were trying to keep a count of how many people visited this year. He knew students from school corporations like Warsaw and Tippecanoe Valley attended the event.
During the approximately 45-minute tour, people saw equipment, with utility employees showing how it’s used and explaining what it does, he said.
During the treatment process, wastewater goes through a screening area that removes things that probably shouldn’t have been flushed in the first place. Then it goes through grit removal, which removes sand and gravel. The wastewater goes through the primary tanks, which lets the heavy solid settle out and those are removed. Then wastewater goes through selector tanks where the wastewater gets phosphorus removed naturally, biologically. Wastewater goes through the aeration tanks and final settling tanks, where the microbes are separated from the water and goes through the disinfection process before the water is reaerated, Davison said.
He said the purpose of the event is to draw awareness to what the wastewater utility does and what it takes to keep the sewer system running and the plant operating.
Davison said, typically, when things are flushed down the drain, people don’t show concern of what happens afterward. He hopes Tuesday’s event helps bring awareness that what people put down the drain affects the job the utility service does. Things that get put down pipes that shouldn’t be in the sewer system - like grease and rags - clogs pumps and pipes and affects the efficiency of the wastewater system.
The wastewater utility coordinated the open house with Earth Day because it provides an important environmental service, cleaning 3-1/2 million gallons of water a day to “swimmable quality.” The community Warsaw Wastewater Utility serves includes Warsaw, Winona Lake, Leesburg and two mobile home communities.