Comparatively speaking, freshwater is a rarity. Compared to all of the liquid that covers the planet, less than 2% of it is the stuff that we can realistically use and consume. From everyday drinking and irrigating to the water that is used for cooling and cleaning, our reliance on this resource means we have to be more cautious than ever in how we use, treat, and recover freshwater no matter what the application. “Water treatment” methods are rarely thought of by the public consumer – just turn the tap and drink the water! – but how heavy industry uses and restores water is a careful line between cost effectiveness and environmental sustainability. The team at Motus Group is here to help companies like yours stay well within regulatory guidelines.
What does it mean to have quality water? It all depends on how you use it and where it goes next.
A majority of industrial settings will recycle their water. It may have been run through pipes as a coolant or used to dissolve solvents for other applications. In these cases, this water needs significant treatment before it is reintroduced to the water supply. When water smells or tastes like anything, people get wary of drinking it and society depends on its citizens being able to trust their water. Large scale municipal water suppliers will use several filtration and treatment facilities to clean and purify water before it goes to people’s homes.
When smell and taste isn’t a factor, water management is more focused on removing contaminants and heavy metals from water before it is returned to the water table. One of the fastest ways to change the ecology of a landscape is by polluting the water – and these impacts can go downstream, sometimes all the way into people’s homes. Just one of the many things the EPA regulates in order to keep small problems small. A few of the other ways water treatment plants help keep you within EPA regulation:
- Removal of pollutants and excessive nutrients that might lead to harmful algae blooms and fish kills.
- Maintaining biodiversity in the areas where water may be released or runoff.
- Reducing waterborne diseases by removing or neutralizing pathogens that can cause cholera, typhoid, and dysentery.
- Ensuring safe water reuse – whether it returns to the general water supply or is recycled into your plant or diverted to another cooling system.
Ideally, we should make an effort to recover, restore, and reuse as much water as possible. Motus Group is here to help your facility explore ways to treat your wastewater so it can be reused. From the addition of Powdered Activated Carbon (PAC) for smell, odor, and heavy metal control to pH balancing using calcium based slurries, we can help create a solution that keeps your water usage low and your output high.