Thursday, September 02, 2004

Water

Ok, so water is officially the coolest thing EVER! Well, maybe not.

Anyway, in one of my classes we go to different places around Utah that have to do with food. Today we went to the Utah Valley Water Treatment Plant. At first I thought this field trip would be lame because it's just to go see water. Well let me tell you, it is not! They went through and showed us all the things they do to purify the water that they get out of the Deer Creek Reservoir. First of all it made me think more about people that go boating on that reservoir. That doesn't sound like things I want in my drinking water. (Don't worry the genius that thought up the filtration and purification system figured out how to make sure it's not in our water.) My favorite part of the tour was when they showed us how they filter the water. They don't just use regular filters, which is what I always imagined they did. No, no, no my friend! They use Anthracite Coal! I know that probably none of you care about this, so I'm not going to go into all the steps of water treatment, but we saw when they cleaned the filter and it was AMAZING!

One other thing I have to mention. The water treatment plant has the safest water supply around. They use these things called daphnae (I'm not sure how to spell that) which are little water fleas and they pump their water through the container that they live in and if the daphnae start jumping all over the place and moving erractically then they test the water for toxins. Also, they have this fish tank that is partly partitioned into two spaces. The fish can easily swim to either side, but one side is smaller than the other and also without folliage. So the water is pumped through one side and then has a 15 minute delay being pumped to the smaller side. If all the fish swim over into the delay side then they know somethings up with the water. PS. Fish are VERY SENSITIVE to toxins. Oh man, this plant was so amazing and I've only told you all two things about it! I know that this probably isn't the most entertaining thing for all of you, but I thought it was cool so I wrote about it. Hope you enjoyed it!

One last thing is my new cool word I learned today:

flocculation.

It not only sounds cool and is fun to say, but it's a pretty interesting process as it turns out.

2 comments:

be said...

I think we should have a contest between all of the sweet words. We could have little bouts like "Flocculation vs. Scintillation" and see who wins, and then when we have more words they can challenge the champions. The title bout can be against Viaduct.

Anonymous said...

First of all, I have to join with everyone else in saying thanks for starting up your blog again :).

And secondly... That's interesting about the water treatment place and all... But I still really dislike Utah water. But that's okay. I'm glad you love your major classes so much (I do, too).

-SAM