![]() ![]() ![]() HEALTH CONCERNS: If it is not properly cleaned, water can carry disease. Visitors are drawn to water activities such as swimming, fishing, boating and picnicking. The scenic and recreational values of our waters are reasons many people choose to live where they do. RECREATION AND QUALITY OF LIFE: Water is a great playground for us all. Migratory water birds use the areas for resting and feeding. They are critical habitats for hundreds of species of fish and other aquatic life. WILDLIFE HABITATS: Our rivers and ocean waters teem with life that depends on shoreline, beaches and marshes. This is important to the fishing industry, sport fishing enthusiasts, and future generations. There are a lot of good reasons why keeping our water clean is an important priority:įISHERIES: Clean water is critical to plants and animals that live in water. It's a matter of caring for our environment and for our own health. Harmful substances that wash off roads, parking lots, and rooftops can harm our rivers and lakes. Although some people assume that the rain that runs down the street during a storm is fairly clean, it isn't. Treatment plants reduce pollutants in wastewater to a level nature can handle. If the term "wastewater treatment" is confusing to you, you might think of it as "sewage treatment." Nature has an amazing ability to cope with small amounts of water wastes and pollution, but it would be overwhelmed if we didn't treat the billions of gallons of wastewater and sewage produced every day before releasing it back to the environment. Much of the water used by homes, industries, and businesses must be treated before it is released back to the environment. We consider wastewater treatment as a water use because it is so interconnected with the other uses of water. The Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, Nashville, Tennessee. Homeowners are responsible for maintaining their septic systems in most cases.Sources/Usage: Public Domain. Common causes of septic system failure include aging infrastructure, inappropriate design, overloading with too much wastewater in too short a period of time and poor maintenance. An estimated 10 to 20 percent of septic systems fail at some point in their operational lifetimes. When a septic system is improperly managed, elevated nitrogen and phosphorus levels can be released into local water bodies or ground water. ![]() Fact Sheets Related to the National Study of Nutrient Removal and Secondary TechnologiesĪpproximately 20 percent of homes in the United States use septic systems that locally treat their wastewater.More detailed information on nutrient removal technology and costs: Various strategies to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loads from wastewater treatments plants are being pursued across the country. In some cases, optimization along with further technology upgrades may be necessary to achieve the nutrient reduction goals of the plant. This approach, often referred to as optimization, is usually much less expensive than upgrades, and for many plants can result in cost savings by reducing energy demand and treatment chemicals. Other treatment plants are able to adjust operations and repurpose existing equipment to remove additional nutrients. Upgrading wastewater treatment systems is often expensive for municipalities and rate payers, but upgrades can pay for themselves or end up saving a plant money. Enhanced treatment systems enable some wastewater plants to produce discharges that contain less nitrogen than plants using conventional treatment methods. Some wastewater treatment plants are able to remove more nitrogen and phosphorus from their discharges than others depending on their equipment and how they treat wastewater. Once the water is cleaned to standards set and monitored by state and federal officials, it is typically released into a local water body, where it can become a source of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Wastewater contains nitrogen and phosphorus from human waste, food and certain soaps and detergents. Wastewater treatment facilities in the United States process approximately 34 billion gallons of wastewater every day. Most homes and businesses send their wastewater to a treatment plant where many pollutants are removed from the water. Septic systems can easily become a source of nutrient pollution if not properly maintained. ![]()
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