The Wakulla Regional Songbird Well and Water Treatment Plant struggles with poor water quality. It is in a neighborhood of Wakulla County in Crawfordville, Florida. The specific problems with the water quality include poor taste, unpleasant odor and a brown-pinkish color during the winter season.
These problems stem from issues such as poor contact time with the chemicals that the distribution company uses to clean the well water. Currently the well water has a contact time of 1-2 minutes total for the chemicals. Two- to three hours is the necessary amount of time to clean the water to a safe measure. We designed a plan to improve the water quality that includes changing the filter media, increasing the contact time with the chemicals by designing a contact tank, and adding new high-pressure pumps. Our plan requires adding bases to support the weights for the new additions. We added a new structure to house the pumps. A backwash tank at the plant creates a ditch when emptied, so we added a retaining wall to prevent the ditch from becoming bigger. We included pipes to connect the system together.
The citizens of the nearby neighborhoods will begin to enjoy better water quality once the entire plan is finished. This allows the citizens to use the water more comfortably for their daily needs.
Jeremy Fletcher, Sebastian Jaramillo, Nayeli Marcial
Sean Martin, Ph.D., P.E., FRSE and Kamal Tawfiq, Ph.D., P.E.
Florida Rural Water Association; Sterling Carroll, P.E., Peyton Piotrowski
Fall