Berthoud has been expanding the water treatment plant to better serve residents and to be independent of the larger surrounding communities with our water needs. Now that expansion is complete, here are some updated facts.
Coagulation and Flocculation Basins
This is the first of the treatment processes. Raw water is first treated with a polymer-based coagulant, rapidly mixed and then flows into a series of flocculation basins. The gentle mixing action in the flocculation basins helps to create collision and adhesion of small particles into larger particles which can then settle in the next process: sedimentation.
Sedimentation Basins
Once the water has spent time in the flocculation basins, it flows to the settling basin to give time for the particles to separate from the clean water. During the expansion at the water plant, two settling tanks were added to the water treatment plant to increase capacity from 2.0 million gallons per day to 4.0 million gallons per day.
Additional Water Filters
The final step is to send the settled water collected from the sedimentation basin to the multi-media gravity filters. This is the final physical process the water will go through inside the water treatment plant before it is sent out to Berthoud's resident's homes. During the expansion, two additional filters were added. Each filter has a capacity of filtering 1.0 million gallons of water each day.
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