Water Purification Process - Incomplete and Inept
In order to have an effective water purification process you have to use numerous steps in order to ensure protection from a variety of contaminants. Because of this it can often be difficult to explain water purification clearly. I’ll do the best that I can to explain it to you right now.
For eons, the water purification process occurred totally naturally. Rain fell and Mother Earth cleansed it; fresh, pure drinking water was ubiquitous. These days it’s a lot more difficult.
What you have to understand initially is what, exactly, must be filtered out of the water in order to make it pure. Chemicals leaching into groundwater are the major problem nowadays. A number of these can be inhibited by an activated granular carbon filter and a multi-media block can take care of the rest.
We also have to contend with bacteria, parasites, protozoa and other microorganisms. Biological waste and farm runoff are the main culprits here. Chlorine disinfection is the most widely used water purification process for dealing with contaminants of this nature.
I’m going to try to explain water purification as it is done by the public treatment facilities in an attempt to allow you to see some form of order in the whole thing. There are many different steps that are taken to clean the water and I think this method will help you to see what I mean more clearly.
Lakes are the standard source of potable water. Freshwater is almost always muddy and populated with debris like branches, leaves, fish, algae and all sorts of other things. This must all be removed by forcing the water through a large scale screen filter.
The second stage in the water purification process is known as flocculation. This involves mixing chemicals into the water that result in a clear, disinfected water; one chemical that’s frequently used at this stage is chlorine. Then the water is directed through filter apparati.
One way to explain water purification at this juncture is to give you the picture of simply pouring water through a series of strainers, each one more tightly woven than the next. That’s pretty much all that’s happening here. The water is simply forced under high pressure through a series of filters with smaller and smaller pores.
The water purification process at these treatment facilities is less effective than you might imagine. The filters simply remove detritus from the water; chlorination is the only key to taking care of everything else. I can’t just explain water purification without also educating you that this is not a sufficient way of safeguarding our water.
That’s because chemicals and bacteria that travel though the filters are not neutralized by chlorine. More care must be taken for proper filtration. Otherwise, we just can’t be positive that our water is safe enough to drink. It should be clear by now that crucial steps in the water purification process are left to you to make.
