Plant set to start cleaning water

GREENWICH TWP. A much-anticipated water treatment facility is set to begin operation on Monday, a move that officials hope will put an end to residents' water quality worries.

The treatment facility is part of an $8.6 million overhaul to the township's water facility, which also includes last year's replacement of 100-year-old water mains as well as the addition of new fire hydrants and valves.

"This is a very big step," said Mayor George Shivery Jr. "This will take care of a lot of the water quality issues we'd been experiencing."

The treatment facility, which will be located on Memorial Avenue, will process water coming from Wells 4A and 6.

Well 6 was turned off last year after traces of benzene were found in the water, but Shivery said the well will come back online once the treatment facility is up and running. Later, 4A will be shut down for maintenance.

Annina Hogan, an engineer who worked on the facility, explained that the treatment plant is necessary for those wells because of the water's unusually high iron content.

"Basically, the plant that exists right now for those wells, they have filters but they have no pre-treatment," Hogan said. "So you're trying to do a job that the filters aren't capable of handling."

The new system will run the water through an air filtration or "aeration" process, according to Hogan. Then, it will use chemicals called "clarifiers" to bond to any remaining iron particles, helping them to sink to the bottom so that clean "pretreated" water can be skimmed through the top.

Afterward, Hogan said, that water is put through the filters to take out any remaining iron, bringing it to acceptable and safe drinking water standards.
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