#32: Can I see when a Manufactured Wetland (Sowb) Needs Flushed?

#33: Can I see when a Manufactured Wetland (Sowb) Needs Flushed?

Video Text:  Back at Deitrich for some teachable moments with Jose Otero, our biz/tech lisaon from Ben Franklin Technology Partners.

Lennox at Deitrich: Hi All, lost the camera feed there.  Just wanted to point out, upon looking at it, the first box had been cleaned out within the last week or so.  And you can tell because the coir that you see is in strands and it’s only just starting to collect some aluminum.  Its not backing up between the delivery vault where you can see an off-set with the adjustable weir plate there.  

If the box settles you can adjust [the weir] left and right and you get good atmospheric transfer there, thats essentially your carburetor.  And [the water flows] to the next cell and there isn’t any back up.

Going to the second [metal removal unit / self organizing wetland bioreactor] its heavily backed up, all the way through.  Same flow rate, but you can see there is a big [water level] offset right here, so what i think we are going to do is pop over next door, we’ll take a quick video of the dewatering bag working, then we’ll borrow their pipekey for a second and come over here and just do this valve [ box 2, cell C] bc it’s really hard to do by hand.  That will get this box back to full running speed bc the back up is in the last cell.

Lennox at Eagle:  Hi, All. Pipekey [brandishes pipekey], allows you to throw the pipe valves.  This is Eagle site, right over next door like i was saying, and you can see that this box is also backing up a little bit.  You’ve got several inches of off-set and once again [pointing] that’s biofilm and iron floc, its not oil. All of that material, all of that water [and sludge] goes into this dewatering bag [points at bag] and its out of the system.  It just continues to dewater [the sludge].

I’d honestly put a tarp over [the dewatering bag] so rainwater doesn’t get in too. Eventually whenever it’s full, it’s got straps and Bentley is going to pick it up and land apply or bury it. There isn’t much you can do with this iron, this ferric oxyhydroxide, iron floc.  But then it keeps it out of this final pond, which is the final treatment [settling/polishing] before it goes to the discharge over that direction.    

Keep watching for More with Colin and Jose.  Cheers!