We use water every day, from taking showers to cooking food, but you may have wondered sometime in the past, “Where does the water come from, and where does it go when you’re done with it?” Today I will be talking about public water systems. From where it comes from to where it goes, this field of infrastructure is very important.

Water In

Now when you were a kid, you may have thought that water is magically created when it comes out of a faucet, but this is far from true. Water comes from many places but not from thin air. So, we need to find an applicable water source to use. Options include natural things like rivers, lakes and underground streams, and man-made sources like reservoirs, and dams. Water can travel through many pipes to reach a town or city, and then into the plumbing of houses to be used in all sorts of things.

You may be wondering where our drinking water comes from, because the water in rivers and ponds are completely undrinkable. Well, (no pun intended) you can get drinking water from rivers and ponds, just not directly. The water has to go through a complicated filtration process in order to become drinkable. When this process is finished, the water goes through a pipeline to the town, then a pump moves the water into a water tower, then in the morning, gravity pushes the water through more pipes and into homes.

Like I said, the water gets to our homes through gravity, because the tower where the water is stored is so high, but if the town or city has varying elevation, it can be difficult to get water places. This is because buildings that are higher will be harder to reach by the water and pressure will be too low and water won’t get to the houses and businesses on the top of hills. While buildings on the bottom of hills will be easier to get to. You might think that this is a good thing, right? Just put the tower at the highest point of elevation in the town. WRONG! If it is easy for the water to get to buildings, then the pressure could be too high, and then the pressure would exceed the ratings of the plumbing, and the pipes burst.

Sewage Out

You may have wondered before where things go after they go down our drains. You may have thought that they all lead directly to the ocean. Unfortunately, this is incorrect, because instead of leading to the ocean, the stuff in your drains leads to your nearest sewage treatment plant. The reason being is because dumping raw sewage into the ocean can POLLUTION! Da, da, DAAAA(#TeamSeas). Anyway, it takes a lot of engineering to get so much poop from point a to point b. Things you need to take into consideration is how close the sewer pipes are to the surface. Too close and things like rainwater can find its way into pipes and cause them to overflow into city streets, but too deep, and it will take too much money and time to dig a trench. Other things to consider are the growth of the city over time, and the speed of the sewage, too slow and solids can build up and cause a blockage, too fast and the water can damage the pipes.

After the raw sewage is done traveling through the pipes, it will arrive at a wastewater treatment plant. A lot of the stuff that makes the water dirty is actually dirt, or small particles that flow with the water. The way these particles are removed is really simple. Remember when I said the solids can build up if the liquid is too slow? Well, this is actually used in our favor here. How it works is that the pipe is widened to slow down the water to the point where the dirt will settle at the bottom where they will be mechanically removed. Then the workers at the plant might release some bacteria into the water to clean it. Then once the water is clean enough it is pumped out of the plant to the nearest body of water.

Appomattox Water System

In the town I live, Appomattox Virginia, we have a slight issue with our water system. Basically, we were using wells to supply the town, but instead of all being above separate underground streams, a hole in the bedrock had connected them all, meaning we had less water than we thought. So, we had to negotiate with Campbell county to give us some of their water since they had extra, but we had a disagreement involving the landfill and now when our deal expires, Dec 31, 2030, they won’t renew it, and we will have a shortage of water once again.

Possible solutions include building a reservoir, which could take 10-15 years and over 70 million dollars, drilling new wells with the help of things like seismic imaging in order to find separate lakes this time, making a new deal with Campbell County, which might be very expensive for us, or making a deal with another county in Virginia.

Conclusion

In summary, it takes a lot to build and design public water systems. And some even have problems like ours. But your Town’s water system probably isn’t exactly like mine.

About the Author

Remington Clusman is a homeschool student in Appomattox with an interest in engineering. Entering his seventh grade level, he has begun a focused study on the different fields of engineering in an effort to hone his natural talents and discover new ways to solve problems.