Water Treatment Plant

Today our unit travelled to Somerset to visit the water treatment plant which is controlled by American Water. A water treatment plant is a thriving business as it can barely keep up with demand. After visiting the water treatment plant I learned that they are doing their best to keep up with the business by constantly attempting to improve/renovate their facilities. They are constantly adding water circulators which are very large water cleaners at a price tag of in the hundreds of thousands. There is a lot of upkeep to a plant like this because if one thing goes wrong then it affects millions of people. For example, when a 60" main broke at the facility people in nearby counties began to panic because they had no water. I found it interesting how the treatment facility took water from the Raritan river, which is considered to be pristine water in NJ, and filters it through a mega-sized tub, (which is one way to look at it) and makes it into clean and spectacular water for the public to drink. Without a water treatment plant like that in Somerset, the American people would be drinking cancerous water which is unacceptable. Therefore, this plant does the best it can because in the future there will eventually be a shortage of water in which it is possible that the treatment plant will not even be able to manufacture fresh water at a rate fast enough to satisfy the public.