Milton Regional Sewer Authority Field Trip

Students have been studying cellular biology for the first weeks of school. For a culminating activity, the students of Mr. Eck and Coach Kiss's class visited the Milton Regional Sewer Authority.

Why, you might ask, would we want to visit a waste water treatment plant? They process . . . well . . . you know - waste water.

The answer to why is in knowing how waste water is treated. Milton's sewer plant uses bacteria to digest the organic materials in the towns waste water. Currently the plant uses aerobic bacteria to digest the wastes. The trip to the sewer plant gave the students the opportunity to meet with a bacteria guru, Mr. George Myers, the plant superintendent. Mr. Myers explained how the plant cleans and sanitizes hundreds of thousands of gallons of waste water, not only from the homes of Milton, but also the Con Agra plant. Mr. Myers explained how over 70% of the water they treat is high energy (sub par noodles and other food stuff is suspended or dissolved in it) waste water from the food plant.

While touring the facility, Mr. Myers described how oxygen in added to the mix of brown water to help with the aerobic respiration process that allows the bacteria to digest the wastes. The brown color of the water, it turns out, is from the bacteria. Waste water, when in enters in the plant, looks closer to river water and doesn't have the brown color seen in the large tanks at the plant.

Mr. Myers also described the massive upgrades planned for the plant, dubbed Ww2E - Waste water to Energy. Using aerobic bacteria requires a lot of electrical energy to run the aerators and wastes the energy stored in the high energy waste water from Con Agra. Under the new design, the aerobic bacteria will be changed to anaerobic bacteria. These bacteria require less oxygen and will produce methane, a combustible gas. The methane will be captured and used to run electrical generators that will, in turn, make the plant energy independent. The plant will power itself.

George's guided discovery of how both aerobic and anaerobic process worked solidified key concepts taught by Coach Kiss in the science class. It also gave the students a valuable lesson in resource management.