WATER QUALITY: TREATMENT

WASTE WATER TREATMENT  What are the steps involved in wastewater treatment?  1. Pump the water to the treatment plant  2. Filter out the sediment (coagulation)  3. Filtration (pushed through carbon, sand, gravel)  4. Treat the water with chlorine & ozone Treatment Plant

HOW DOES OUR WATER GET FILTERED NATURALLY?

1. Ground water  Aquifers 2. Wetlands 3. Estuaries

AQUIFERS  An aquifer is an underground body of saturated rock through which water can easily move.

AQUIFERS  Aquifers are natural filters that trap sediment and other particles and provide natural purification of the ground water flowing through them.  Like a coffee filter, the pore spaces in an aquifer's rock or sediment purify ground water (the 'coffee grounds') but not of dissolved substances (the 'coffee').

WHY ARE AQUIFERS IMPORTANT? 1. Much of the drinking water on which society depends is contained in shallow aquifers.  Florida’s groundwater aquifers supply more than 90 percent of the state's freshwater. 2. If they become polluted or dry up, we lose our #1 freshwater source.

WETLANDS  Along coasts there are swampy areas of land that are saturated with water

WETLANDS  Wetlands reduce the amount of harmful substances that enter a stream, river, pond, or lake by acting like a strainer.  When toxic substances enter a wetland, plants will take many of the harmful substances into their roots and change them into less harmful ones before they are released to the water body.  Harmful substances may also be buried in wetland soil, where bacteria and other microorganisms break the substances down so they are no longer considered dangerous. Bill Nye - Wetlands

ESTUARIES  Estuary - When the fresh water from a river mixes with salt water of the ocean  An estuary may also be called a bay, lagoon, sound, or slough.  A lot of times the top portion of an estuary will be fresh water, while the bottom is salt water. Why does this happen?

ESTUARIES  Estuaries are important for treating our water because they act as a filter.  Similar to wetlands, as water flows through areas such as swamps and salt marshes, much of the sediments and pollutants are filtered out. This filtration process creates cleaner/clearer water  Plants & grasses act as vegetative buffers between the land and ocean. This helps prevent erosion and stabilize shorelines.

ESTUARY