You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2009.
I was on holidays during National Water Week, but to make sure I didn’t miss out on the fun and excitement, I looked up NWW activities at my holiday location – Alice Springs. And so I spent the morning of my last whole day in Alice at the open day at Alice Springs Water Reclamation Plant.
The plant was designed to protect the nearby Ilparpa Swamp from the overflow from the wastewater stabilisation ponds. The plant treats 600 megalitres of water per day, most of which is pumped 6.2 km to the Arid Zone Research Centre. Some of the water is used to irrigate Blatherskite Park, which was previously irrigated with water directly from the stabilisation ponds.
In this part of the plant, water is treated with sulphuric acid to adjust pH, cationic polymer and aluminate to coagulate and flocculate.
The water from the end ponds is pumped to the plant, where the pH is adjusted with sulphuric acid prior to coagulation with a cationic polymer and flocculation with aluminate. Although some solids are removed in the ponds, the intake water for the plant contains large amounts of algae which are removed in the coagulation/flocculation process.
The second stage of the treatment is Dissolved Air Flotation. The removed solids are returned to the ponds, and the clarified water is then chlorinated and sent to the reclaimed water tank. A critical control point sends the water back to the pond if any of the on-line monitoring indicates that the water is not meeting the required standard.
Water that does not meet standards is sent back to the wastewater ponds
At the Arid Zone Research Centre the water goes through a final treatment and storage process known as Soil Aquifer Treatment (SAT). Although this process has been in use in overseas for many years, the Alice Springs plant is the first in Australia. The water is stored in basins located over the original Todd River artesian basin where potable water will be stored underground for future reuse.
Built at a cost of A$10.4M, and opened in May 2008 the project has won awards for its architectural design. Let’s hope it is similarly successful in its application.
The grounds of the plant have been landscaped by Greening Australia using local native vegetation and water from the plant.
I’ve added more photos to the Smartwater Flickr group.
River Murray Dying is a Flickr group with 51 members and over 350 photos.Their beautiful but heartbreaking photos can be viewed as a Slide Show. The introduction to the group states:
About River Murray Dying
We are hoping to show images which highlight the plight of the River Murray as it slowly dwindles and dies. We are hoping that by gathering the evidence we might have a tool to get something done, to get some meaningful action instead of just words, to reverse the current inaction, to alert those ignorant of the sad state which has been reached, to save our Murray. Sequential photos taken over time would be very useful to this cause but any images showing the downward spiral would be welcome. Hope you can help.
This group is well worth a look.
Our Flickr group, Reclaimed Water Network, on the other hand, still has only 2 members and only 11 photos. I know we are all sitting on more photos that we could be sharing. Finding the right photo for a presentation or lecture can be tedious, and then worrying about having the right to use it…
You can create a Flickr account using your Yahoo ID. A free Flickr account comes with some restrictions on the total number of photos and the possibilities for organising them (about 200 photos and five sets). A pro account, with no restrictions, costs about US$27 per year. Once you have your account, you can upload photos using
- the Flickr Uploadr (available for both PC and Mac)
- iPhoto, Aperture, or Windows XP plugins
- the Flickr web page
- various free third-party desktop programs
You can edit photos using Picnik, organise them into sets, and if you have a pro account, collections. You can even plot the locations on a map.
For each of your photos and videos on Flickr you can set:
- privacy level, which determines who can see your image
- usage license, so your copyrights are protected
- content type, flag your photos and videos as either photos and videos, artwork/illustrations, or screenshots
- safety level, so other members only see images within their specified comfort zone
Then you can share them, by adding them to the Reclaimed Water Network group. You can explore the other groups on Flickr, make contacts with people with similar interests, keep in touch with people you know.
I love my Flickr account, and I am pretty sure Flickr would be a useful tool for the Researchers’ Network. In fact,it already has been, as we found our header photo on Flickr. If people preferred, it would be possible to start an account for the network, and allow members to upload photos to it. But having your own account gives you much more control over access and copyright.
