Nature of waste water treatment

A few weeks of my American life I spent a lovely place in the city of Arcata. As environmental journalist I was interested to learn about recycling and waste water treatment. Russian environmentalists and journalists, speaking on environmental issues in Russia, used to cite as an example Europe and America, where these processes have become something inseparable from everyday life. In Arcata which is in Northern California, I had the opportunity to see how this happens. One of my journalist's sallies was a trip to the marsh. Local volunteers have been planted in the marsh sold grass to restore the local ecosystem. Along the way, I learned about how marshes are used to clean wastewater and wrote an article about it for a Russian newspaper. Here are excerpts from this article.

"This place was abandoned; there were only destroyed buildings timber plant and stations on sewage treatment, which did not work. But in the early 80's the city drew attention to his "problem areas". At that time, was founded FOAM » - says Julie Neander, Environmental Programs Manager of City of Arcata

For several decades, city residents have transformed the abandoned bogs into one of the most popular tourist destinations in the area. The problem was unique - to keep the ecosystem, built here in this new station for sewage treatment. The technology, which was offered by public, was expensive, besides there was no confidence in its environmental safety. But nevertheless, it was adopted. "It took about ten years to overcome the political, administrative and financial obstacles in order to complete the project.
Cleaning system, built on a marsh, serves about 16,000 people and is a multi-complex. First isolated from sewage solid fractions, recycle them, mixed with sawdust or hay, and then used as compost. The liquid part of ozonized, and then disinfected by chlorination, remove chlorine, and then double-pumped the water through three interconnected marshes. Algae, which are in the marsh, absorb all organic parts, remaining in water after cleaning. Then the water from the marsh is leaking into the ocean under its own pressure"

But in Russia, and specifically in St. Petersburg, which is sometimes called the city on a marsh, there is a gig troubles with waste water treatment. Our rivers are polluted and continue to pollute. Plants that discharge into rivers and canals an industrial waste, working with local utilities’ organizations and this cooperation is beneficial for both. Businesses pay fines for water pollution to company who is responsible for save water in the city, and it is a gain for governmental the Petersburg’s centralized water supply company. These fines are incomparably less than the cost of the installation of purification filters. City’s collectors are not designed for wastewater treatment, and the heads of public services are aware of it. The problem becomes aggravated also because of the high level of corruption among officials responsible for environmental security in St. Petersburg. Greenpeace local office is one of the few organizations that are trying to solve this problem. We can solve this problem in only one way. I talked with the head of Friends of the Arcata Marsh, asking her about does the city government helps with volunteer work? Are there any benefits or donations? And she answered me - we are a government. So everything is working.  Unfortunately, we don’t have such confidence of who are our leaders as we are not sure about our own rights and responsibilities to ourselves and nature.; The answer lies precisely in the fact, whether we are ready to be our own government and to be responsible for every single pipe that pollutes our water?