OCR Text |
Show If Mtflo Bssphrss Water Tmsfimmt V' -gTcARY R. BLODGETT News Editor I BOUNTIFUL -- A pilot ; , program is underway to test I he ater quality of Mill Creek as it enters Mueller Park from the nearby moun- i tain streams. I i AND AFTER one week of I ' testing- the prospects of us- . in2 the canyon water for r culinary (drinking) water to I 5erve Bountiful residents "is t very optimistic," according ' to Bob Carlson, Bountiful ! Water Superintendent. i Runoff water from the , ' stream has been tested day and night -- under var- ious conditions --for the past "" I week and the results thus far ":" are absolutely astounding. " "The test results are even be-, be-, ter than we expected," said i' Asa Robinson, customer ser- ' vice representative in charge lal" of the testing program. ;ai ter "WE HAVE every reason the to be optimistic," he said. "We have had superb testing results under some very diffi-, diffi-, h cult conditions." wife 51 He explained that results avail '? during the weeklong testing gcoiiR I show turbidity (NTU) counts :hera'p: to be very low - less than 'ices. " one-half the national Environmental En-vironmental Protection MORE Agency (EPA) standards for lori accepting the system for Jrs M:q culinary use. i.m. !; prope "THE ACCEPTED mini-he mini-he ew;c mum NTU by the Environ-,, Environ-,, n! f mental Protection Agency is ' one unit, but our tests thus far have been in the range of .2 to .5 -- the latter being one- i half the minimum EPA standard," stan-dard," he said. "We've had some variance from this, but only when there has been fault in request, the filtering system. Other-. Other-. 15 buls: wise, the results have been irseentri:- exceptionally good good queststr' enough that it would be pos-:ral pos-:ral goir to drink the treated wa-auguralir- ter w'tnout anv problems mumoffc whatsoever." !' was."- MR. ROBINSON empha- 'cy ; sized that the water which is ompeiiti.. being treated by a miniature c that A' (,ut full-scale water purification purifi-cation plant - does not con- covercJ' tain chlorine, which would cesneeJr: be added if the system is )e collect: accepted for citywide use. I office is "But the chemicals used in id-raising the treatment of the water are fund-raw: 'he same chemicals used to lions wills treat otner water for culinary s. purpose," he said. "And thus far we have lowered the contamination count to a point of easily meeting state and federal health standards." stan-dards." THE ON-SITE testing, however, is not conclusive. Besides meeting EPA standards, the water samples must be approved by the State Health Department, Mr. Robinson explained. Also, according to Mr. Carlson, Carl-son, the city is still negotiating negotiat-ing with the U.S. Forest Service Ser-vice for control of upstream water sheds and for a site on Forest Service land where the permanent treatment plant would be located. IF APPROVED by the State Health Department, and if other concerns can be worked out, a permanent water wa-ter treatment plant will be built downstream from where the present testing site is located. The plant, to cost an estimated esti-mated $350,000, will be built on federally owned property just a few yards east (up the canyon) from the uppermost picnic site of Mueller Park. WE COULD begin construction con-struction later this summer and work on the plant until inclement weather in the fall. Then work wouuld have to be suspended until spring of 1984 and the plant should be completed by late summer of 1984, Mr. Carlson noted. He said money has been allocated in the water department depart-ment budget for work to begin be-gin after the fiscal year (July 1). IT'S ALSO possible that a small, rather inexpensive hydro-electric generator can be installed at the pump site upstream that would generate gener-ate enough electricity -- even during a major blackout - to operate the pump and purification purifi-cation plant, according to the city water superintendent. Mr. Robinson noted that testing this time of year is difficult dif-ficult because of the cold water wa-ter (about 40 to 45 degrees) and because of the heavy runoff. "BUT WE'RE still getting " excellent results," he said. "We've run extensive tests at .2, .5 and just under one unit - and all have proven successful." Mr. Robinson explained that the tests are regulated by allowing certain amounts of chemicals to be allowed into the treatment system over a long period of time. "IF THE WATER tests show purification at these settings, it can be assumed that a permanent treatment plant will have the same success" suc-cess" he said. "With a permanent per-manent plant, chemicals will be entered at a specified amount and the purification system will operate at that level unless there is a problem. "If a problem arises, the fully automated system will reject the water by back-flushing back-flushing it." MR. CARLSON added that the entire purification system will be monitored in the office of the City Water Department, 245 W. 1050 South, and recorded on computer. com-puter. "We'll know minute-by-minute the quality of water wa-ter going through the system," sys-tem," he said. If accepted and put into use, it would be the first fully automated purification system sys-tem on an open stream along the Wasatch Front, Mr. Carlson Carl-son noted. "AND I predict that within a few years there will be 20 or more similar purification systems on all the major canyon streams from Provo to Logan," he said. "It will be the first time canyon water will be captured cap-tured and treated for city-wide city-wide culinary water use in the state." Operating at capacity --when --when the stream flow is normal nor-mal or above - the system will add about 1,500 gallons of treated water per minute into the city's culinary water system. "WE WILL be able to provide pro-vide virtually any section of the city with this water, but most of it will probably be used in the upper-bench areas where culinary water is now being pumped from lower low-er elevations," said Mr. Carlson. "In the long run, this will save the city pumping costs as well as providing the entire en-tire system with another source of water." DURING THE testing, water wa-ter was pumped into the fi-.H i . ' : V - '. - .- ' --. . ; . ; -.. . v . y , - ';. 1 . ? i 5 ' : " ,,- ;. ;- !.- .. , . i ' - " v-1 ' !,J . - -' ' i : V . . : N - $ . ,' ; ' :; . a . ' .... .. r n . - v . xxi. '. - x ' : - t N . i' .--V ' ' .; t-. ii.H-v " ' : ' f ? 1 : v j , r , -" 4 ' v ' ' V . , " - " Spring runoff gushes down Mill Creek, some of which was drawn from stream and purified to meet culiiwy standards. miniature treatment plant - through a 2-inch hose directly direct-ly from the open stream. After Af-ter being filtered and treated , the water is periodically tested and recorded. Testing was scheduled to be completed last Friday, following fol-lowing a final on-site test by State Health Department Officials. "BOUNTIFUL has owned water rights to Mill Creek for nearly 25 years and it has broken my heart to see this water flow to the valley each year without being used for anything but irrigation" said Mr. Carlson. But then with a big smile he added: "Now it looks like . my dream is coming true by . harnessing, this water for culinary use." AND IF the plant on Mill Creek is successful, plans are already in the wind to have a second, similar plant installed instal-led in a few years on Barton Creek. sebyi , )avisHir '. y ltv V U , Ns v ' J duAll . I 1 ver taken- -s - ; 'Tpxr ywj ii - "m X':. ;.') " PrlrT'r!-;in V j cU v L, f; pii t t it iin i - ibers.S' 1 $ j L (If t h . :ity school- )r,,Vf". . s-. --r 'Ut - it - ' sc from 7 'f M - : I , f !A A ; r , would h r y A m : f i I J n " i "be forme: , ; : : t : glkfct Sk ' -J,, X , Tl CC J;Wv r ! Ik .: '-.' ' dfncnj!l 1 'A -.: r Pi. ' V- ihsceJ tf- , s i j 1 if v 1 , . M l cttiiR t' t'-F " 1 fV 'vv ' .; ! I SH ll I I . I'' : Hv:sn.&T& -v--AVJ frXcl: - - , " pV fct xO 4w .xv:a-H;: ": ortl-, I x f . -5. V - .i:-V'--.:: -V ' ..... . ,rrtJ,V! " - -: ' 1lScrM;i: I vi. . .:f :" .ic 'Mil - - V - cenci';', I - . --. 'So"nr,rb inrcr Sunr tfofr Cirwi 5 rjffJ)n"' jnJ Asd RoNnson snhjv minijturc purification plant. I - i.'l I i It 1 . ... r V fiv-V!l . i t f x:; I L.Ct t .... ! : " ' - ff( x. : f ;V , ."U , N 111 Mr. Robinson draws sample of purified water for turbidit' testing. t " F t f , , 1 i r urrn - ? r'1 f -; V f U M 1 j crr:::Tr:..: Jj --X rf i Scores of control buttons regulate portable testing facilitw |