October 6 2020

Today is Labour Day in South Australia.

A public holiday for all.

But that doesn't mean the taps stop flowing.

And if you don't know what I mean, perhaps you use the term 'faucet' in your part of the world.

The demand for water never stops; so the water treatment plant never sleeps. And therefore, the water treatment plant operators always have a buttload of work to do.

At the very least, like during public holidays (and weekends) one of them has to come in to do the absolutely essential routine tasks for the day.

Today that person was me.

So here's a real quick breakdown of my day.

Starting with the sludge plant:
Check the pumps, the pipes, the basement, the lagoon.
Dip the thickeners, collect a sludge sample from the centrifuge, collect the process-water usage figures for the last 24 hours. Check the polyelectrolyte stock tank level. Check the air compressors. Check that the sludge removal bridges have run during the last 24 hours and adjust the time between runs to prevent the thickeners from overflowing. Arm the building.

Go to the main treatment plant. Prepare the centrifuge sample for desiccation. Measure and calculate the density of yesterday's sample. Check and record the chemical storage tank levels, the dose rates and the raw water integrator figures.

Trend the filter outlet data using the plant SCADA software to determine which filter had the highest turbidity in the last 24 hours.

Don a respirator, gumboots, chemical goggles, arm-length gloves and an apron. Clean the online lime slaker. Return slaker to service. Remove your protective gear. Pump out the bunded areas (all seven of them). Check if there were any after-hours aluminium sulfate deliveries and collect the dockets if there were. Visually inspect the chemical dosing equipment.

Go to the chlorine dosing plant. Inspect the chlorine drums, the copper pipework, the evaporators, the chlorinators, the injectors, the air compressors, the control cabinets upstairs, the vacuum regulators and finally, flush the safety showers (all five). Reset the flow-switches from the HMI before you leave. Arm the building.

Go to the corrosivity pilot plant. Record the pH and temperature.

Go back to the main plant. Access the daily abstract from your laptop. Enter all of today's figures and double check the auto-collated data before committing it for the day. Upload the completed abstract to the central server.

Check you've locked all the doors.

Leave site.

...

And that's just if everything is running normally!

I'm on-call now for the rest of the day and right through the night until 7.30am tomorrow, in case there are any issues.

Today's photo is actually from the 29th of September, after some slight drizzle.

Keep it real folks.