Auburn’s Board of Public Works, or BPW, hosted Johnson- Brock and Auburn Public Schools Fourth Graders for tours of their facilities on Tuesday, October 22. The annual Energy Fest event featured educational lessons and demonstrations of the BPW’s electricity generation and water and wastewater treatments.
At the water treatment building, BPW employees displayed various stages of water filtration samples, explaining the different processes needed to achieve each stage. They went over the different cleansing chemicals used to make the water safe to drink, and the dangers that come with said chemicals, and the sheer volume of water treated and used in and by the City of Auburn. Around 700 gallons of water are treated per minute at the facility, and the City uses roughly 300,000 gallons per day, if you were curious, though currently being in a water shortage, people should be mindful of their usage, and try to cut down from the average of 100 gallons a day per person.
The second half of the water tours took the students to the wastewater treatment plant. There, employees worked to remove the solid, non-decomposable waste from incoming wastewater. They explained that, though flushable wipes were advertised as being safe to flush in the toilet, people should not do so, as they clog the pipes and are not degradeable. They showed the kids the different treatment machines and let them view different microbes and bacteria through a microscope. Though many of the things the children saw, and smelled, were rather gross, spirits were high when the tours came to an end.
