Tuesday, October 23, 2012

wastewater.... and a treatment plant!!! (Guest post by Lola)

These are Lola's complaints about the wastewater treatment plant she visited. It sucked.

Hi narrator dude.


The script, Lola...

Oh. Today, my class went on a field trip to the nearest wastewater treatment plant. You had to cover your wrists, so I had to wear my jacket the whole time. I got very hot. When we got there, we went to this room and sat down. They ranted and showed us a video, none of which stood out except for a small rant about how quote and quote "Flushable" wipes were often flushed down the toilet while, when you can physically flush it, it does not break up and cause a problem at the wastewater treatment plant. We were told to put on a hard hat liner and a hard hat (blah blah blah Federal law) and these gloves, so we wouldn't get as many germs. Oh, those gloves sucked. They were the plastic-ey latex kind, and in the beginning they were uncomfortable and through the tour it started to get sweaty, crumpled, and yeah. We were not allowed to take it off until we finished the tour. I will always remember the purple of those gloves.

We then we walked to the place where they drag a metal.... thingy through the water to get the big things out. It smelled absolutely horrible, and one girl got nauseous. After that was dealt with, we went into the next part, where they...... do something. All I remember is complaining to my friend about the gloves and smell. Then they have this whole mess of tubes called the tube gallery, and then....... well, at some point they let the water sit there for a few hours so the organisms eat up the leftover solids, and also at some point it gets so smelly they have to clean the air to breathe. They have a few tubes labeled"CONTAMINATED AIR". After that, the water is clean and it goes 4,000 feet (1,219.2 meters, and I also found 2.54 centimeters makes exactly one inch) into the bay. Also by then, my gloves were sweaty and wrinkled, and my hard hat was falling off (not really, they have a nifty thing on the hard helmets to make it the right size). When I finally took my gloves off, the inside of it was literally covered with a thin layer of sweat, and my hair was tangled from the hard hat.

So yes, it sucked. Bye. May kittens make you happy.

4 comments:

Silliyak said...

The motto for treatment plant operators is "Your "poop" is our bread and butter!"

NonymousGoatsePants said...

I agree with Lola. Wastewater treatment plant operators are lazy cheap bastards.

"Oooh! Your wipes are mucking up our process! Wah, wah, wah! "Stop routing your sump pumps into the sewer. It overcapacitates[SIC] the system."

I was happy pouring all our shit into a hole in the ground. You turds built a treatment system that doesn't work, and now you want me to change my behavior, and house construction. I have a suggestion for you. Learn how to design a system that properly accounts for the current usage scenario.

And stop torturing our kids with these smelly tours. For God's sake, think of the children!

hughman said...

So basically this was all about the gloves?

GodsKid said...

In the 1970's, 80's, when these sewage treatment plants (STPs) were being built, my dad built a lot of the catwalks and railing parts. Out east, not in California. And occasionally had to weld a fix while standing ankle deep in .... yeah, that stuff.