Environmental Laws

Source of Environmental Law

• Legislation (federal, state, local)
• Regulations (federal, state, local)
• Court Desicions (interpreting statues and regulations)
• Common Law
• Constitutions (United States, state)
• International Treaties
• Foreign Regulations

Protection of Aquatic Life

Anthropogenic stresses, introduction of chemicals into water, affect many species of aquatic flora and fauna.

Parts that concern to enviromentalis are

• Dissolved oxygen (kill fish at low concentration)
• Phosphates, ammonium and nitrate (cause significant changes in community strcuture)
• Heavy metals and many synthetic chemical (ingested and absorbed by organisms cause bioaccumulated in body)
• Pollutant (cause carcinogenic, reproductive and developmental effects)

Stress in River Basin

1. Rapid urban development

2. Increase Pollution Loads - Sewage

3. Poor water quality

Effluent Characteristic From Sewage Treatment Plant

The purpose of treating domestic wastewater in treatment plant is to ensure that discharging of effluent meet the requirement by authorities. Without authorities forces, people will easily dumping and pollute our environment.

Basic concept in Sewage effluent are less toxic/no toxic to living entity and separation of organic solid. Reaching of recycle and reuse of effluent may the ultimate achievement to wastewater treatmment operators.

Normally, sewage effluent water in Malaysia contain less metal and heavy metal if the incoming sewage stands individually. For the old network sewarage piping system, the infiltratin run-off interrupting the standard final effluent (FE). Most township in this country were very old, sewerage networking system have been infected by natural wear and tear. Recently, sewer rehabilition is the one of focussed item in sewerage operation.

Other kind of discharge such as illegal chemical dumping, waste from chicken slaugter house, food processing factory will also increase SS, BOD and COD in discharge effluent. There are encumbrance to operators where the authorities forcing had change method of treating incoming sewage. This occurance had increase operation cost of treatment plant especially electricity, labour cost and sludge management.

What ever it is, BOD max of 20mg/l, COD max of 50mg/l, SS mas of 50mg/l, not detectable O&G and ammonia level which less than 10 mg/l must be achieved to save Malaysian's reserve water. We save our environment, that means we execute our responsibility. God Bless Us.

Description of Devices

Diffuser - To distribute bubble through provided porous space into wastewater. Bubble come from the blower/rotary blower. Most popular blower in Malaysia are Futsu, Taiko and Longtech. Normally, Longtech provides very nice/soft sound compare to other brand, however the brand source currently exhausted.

There are types of diffusers, for grit and aeration. For aeration, there will be a fine bubble diffusers type.

Blower - Provides air. Air supplied to wastewater trough piping and diffuser.

Surface aerator - Contain motor and blade sets. The blade set will circulate on surface of water. Splashing of water provides contact to ambient air. More kilowatts of motor normally will provides more contact between water and air.

Aeration Devices

                        

               Diffusers                                               Ejector

                  
     Rotary Blower/Compressor                        Surface Aerator

Aeration Tank

Aeration tank is the major of the wastewater treatment structure. Treatment of wastewater using aeration equipment also called secondary treatment. Design of aeration tank absolutely refer to incoming load to the tank.

Aeration tank refers to several design for the activated sludge treatment type. A few secondary treatment tank are listed as below:

1. Extended aeration
2. Oxidation ditch
3. Batch reactor

For extended aeration tank, there are a few mutation where the process actually holding same concept such as:

1. Loyal extended aeration (LEA) - the word "loyal" refers to the designers or the manufacturer of the tank and the tank made from fibers.
2. Hi-Kleen - Normally known as a package plant where the whole structure from equilization tank, aeration tank and clarifier were ready made (fabricate in factory) from fiber or any suitable material.

The manufacturer are significantly using the same procedure in designing the treatment process, whereby the name normally to show to market about their company.

For batch reactor, few mutation of how the treatment stage are arrange prior completion of wastewater treatment process. Batch reactor means, a bulk/volume of wastewater be treated in the same tank. Batch reactor doesn't need clarifier during sedimentation stage. There are significant stage in the batch reactor includes:

1. Aeration stage
2. Settling/Sediment stage
3. Decanting/remove clean water stage

Best arrangement from the stage means reduction of expenditure during STP development/construction. On the other side, the operator will also need extra expertise in order to adapt this situation. The criticality scoring will increase as the situation will increase risk of releasing failed FE to the natural receivers. A few type of arrangement will also produce a few names such as:

1. IDEA - Intermittent Decanting Extended Aeration - become more popular in recent years.
2. IDEAL - Intermittent Decanting Extended Aerated Lagoon.
3. SBR - Sequencing Batch Reactor -most popular arragement in Malaysia because of the capabilty of existing designers and STP operator. (more easy than other 'batch' treatment process)

Malaysians Guidelines STP Developers

PART 1

General Planning Approval Requirement

The application procedures for sewage treatment plant approval shall follow the requirement given in volume 2 of these guidelines. In general, the application for approval of a treatment plant shall include:

• Sufficient land area for the sewage treatment plant plus additional area to allow for extension to the plant, where necessary.
• Buffer zones
• The location of the sewage treatment plant in relation to the reminder of the system. Sufficient topographic features shall be included to indicate its location in relation to stream and the point of discharge of treated effluent.
• Schematic flow diagrams showing utility systems serving the plant processes and the flow through various plant units.
• Piping, including any arrangements for by-passing individual units. The direction of flow through pipes shall also be shown.
• Hydraulic profiles showing the flow of sewage, supernatant liquor, and sludge
• Location, dimensions and elevations of all existing and proposed plant facilities
• Point of discharge of treated effluent (effluent outfall) and the elevations of high and low water level of the body of water to which the plant effluent is to be discharged.
• Type, size, features and operating capacity of all pumps, blowers, motors and other mechanical devices together with manufacturer catalogues.
• Minimum, average and maximum flows, velocities and top water level in profiles.
• Accessibility, landscaping and fencing
• Flow measurement facilities
• Materials, dimensions and specifications.
• Ground conditions including levels, type, groundwater level and safe bearing pressure of foundation.
• Details of foundation design.
• All other component parts of the sewage treatment plant.
• A technical report, which covers the ‘whole life’ cost evaluation of the plant.
• Presentation requirements, process and instrumentation diagram, and mass balances.
• Detailed drawings that are clear and legible and of standard format.
• Detailed information on operation and maintenance

Accident Fire and Pollution?

Looking at the smoke, you know what is happening to the environment.

This called an accidential pollution. Same like hazard spill at sea, factory or work place.

There is requirement for emergency requirement (ERP) in controlling such as hazards from above mention sources.

This accident happen during gun battle between drug dealers and police at Rio de Janeiro. Environment maybe doesn't like so critical to control such these accidential fire. But maybe, fine maybe increase to the dealer because of polluting.

ERP for accidential during gengstrism demolishment maybe needed in order to safe our environment.

Equilization Tank

Tank which consist of transfer pump and aerator. Construction of equilization tank may useful to balance treatment intake in the aeration tank. It will also useful in contolling volume of water to be treated in the aeration tank. As such, equilization tank is very important in optimizing treatment process at downstream i.e if water in the aeration tank reach its volume, feed pump will stop feeding the aeration tank while the incoming water will simultaneously accumulated/be in equilization tank before next coming volume.

Like continuos treatment such as extended aeration (EA), Equilization tank will be a buffle tank for the aeration tank during surge flow. Surge flow in treatment process may cause stability of treatment process like 'over' flowing of MLSS which means, the depletion of suspended's food digestor.

Overflowing of digestor to FE will also cause unwanted bacteria (filamentous bacteria) to grow in treatment tank, hence create hard conditions during settlement process.

Guideline by Malaysian authority during wastewater plant construction shows that, construction of equilization tank will subsequently reduce aeration tank size by specific ratio.