Turbidity Control in Lake

*Do you use soap/ detergents for your washing operation?

*What inputs cause sudden turbidity?

*Can you send the scheme of your lake including settling tanks?

*also show the turbid water from the lake as well as water sample after allowing to settle in the tumbler.Use simple clear glass tublers or beakers with digital camera images.

Let us work out some solutions.

no we don't use any soap in washing just the lake water the turbidity jumped when we started running the plant all night 3 weeks ago it was 119 we have a flocklent pump but it doesn't seem to do any good our return ditch runs approx. a mile and goes through two settling ponds and I know they are part of the problem because we have no way to clean them the ground is to soft to get a trackhoe to them I will get you pics tomorrow i don't have a camera here today thanks

Guest,

To me it looks like answering a half understood question. If you don't have a digital camera you can use mobile phone camera.

Now try this cheap experiment.

Take a PET water bottle, cut it half and keep the bottom piece.

Make small holes using a hot nail.

Put round shaped mesh fabric, fill few Centimeters of small gravel stones and on top fill cleaned and washed out sand [few inches]

Now your trial sand filter is ready.

Pass fresh clean water and check if the filter is not adding to turbidity.

Now you can collect the pond water sample after turbulators and pass gently over you trial sand filter , collect the bottom receipt and check for turbidity in a clean glass.

If it works, then clearance by sand filter is possible.

Based on your feed back ,further matters can be discussed. Find time.

Regards

I agree with all points of your comment, and vote you a GA.

I see that DVader has pretty much the same take.

With information from OP, this sounds like a variation on the old saying; "You cannot treat six pounds of poop with a five pound settling pond".

I also agree with this! Good point!

Back in the day we used a " Mudcat " dredge to clear the silt from our settling ponds as well as our main pond.... before we could afford to buy one, we used a pump with a 6" suction hose rigged to a crane or "cherry picker".Still need a floculant though....Also multiple weir boards 2" or so to control water discharged from settling ponds to your main pond......

Very safe and eco friendly solution to your problem could be take a leaf out of ancient African and Indian method of water treatment both for removal or turbidity level and to render it terminologically safe. I quote from http://www.echotech.org/mambo/images/DocMan/MorWaterTreat.pdf. "Moringa oleifera seeds treat water on two levels, acting both as a coagulant and an antimicrobial agent. It is generally accepted that Moringa works as a coagulant due to positively charged, water-soluble proteins, which bind with negatively charged particles (silt, clay, bacteria, toxins, etc) allowing the resulting "flocs" to settle to the bottom or be removed by filtration. The antimicrobial aspects of Moringa continue to be researched. Findings support recombinant proteins both removing microorganisms by coagulation as well as acting directly as growth inhibitors of the microorganisms. While there is ongoing research being conducted on the nature and characteristics of these components, it is accepted that treatments with Moringa solutions will remove 90-99.9% of the impurities in water." Moringa known as Drum Stick tree is prodigiously grown in India and Africa is used extensively a very nutrient food.

Some small clay particles will remain in water as a suspension due to their size and negative charge, and they will not precipitate even if centrifuged. However, if alum (such as aluminum sulphate ~ Al(SO4)3) is added, the negative clay particles will combine with the aluminum ion (AL+3) and form a substance which will allow precipitation. This final process should remove the residual fine clay particles. Use minimum amounts of alum, and check the concentrations of sulfate ions and pH to ensure appropriate levels to safe-guard wildlife etc. Check this process out in the laboratory to see if will apply in your situation.

Dried Hay (not straw ~ up to 600 lbs/acre-foot) is also a good method of removing turbidity in a lake or collecting ponds etc. (Checkout adding some Ca(OH)2 also to the process in #6 above). Not knowing the details of your situation makes it difficult to select your best solution.

I run a wastewater treatment facility for a small paper manufacturing company in which clays are used as a constituent of our product. Our wastewater treatment process includes ferrous Chloride (FeCl2) precipitation with polymer coagulation. The resulting effluent is very clear and free of dissolved solids. Note: lime or some other caustic would be necessary to balance the acidic pH of the FeCl2

Since this problem began only after your plant began all night operations, the likeliest cause would be insufficient sedimentation time. Is it possible for you to enlarge your settling pond? If not, then you may need to install holding tanks to allow for sufficient settlement time.

Thanks for the recognition guys and gals.

I'm new into water treatment, but have spent 27 years chasing process control issues and it's almost always a change in the process that creates the change in outcome.

For every process it's simple. Changed input conditions leads to changed output conditions.

The example that I've sometimes used is that while a VW Beetle can drive down the road, it cannot be used to pull a semi-trailer. Horses for courses.

Hello,

According to your second email, that turbidity reading 119 NTU for all night, therefore temperature may be low. is your reading 612 NTU on day time? Settling have affect due to temperature,

Check your dosing pump and cog/flocc quality

Retention time and mixing is very important for settling, please carry out JAR test for your wastewater sample to see the effectiveness for your coagulant and flocculant.

(Carryout particle analysis for wastewater to see the size distribution, if you cannot determine the dose rate from JAR test)

If you can post waste water analysed report, it may help me to give some suggestion,

Check your flow rate during the high turbidity time too, (If flow rate higher than the design flow rate, redesign and modification needed)