Caasd puts La Zurza Treatment Plant into operation

With an investment of US $ 120 million, about RD $ 7 billion, the Mirador Norte La Zurza Wastewater Treatment Plant was put into operation, considered one of the works with the greatest social impact of the administration of President Danilo Medina, with the treatment of 27 million gallons of water every day from the ravines that previously dumped directly into the Isabela River.

Through a 48-inch pipeline, which runs for more than six kilometers, the waters are propelled by six gullies, on the banks of the Isabela River and purified at the plant located on Jacobo Majluta Avenue, in Santo Domingo Norte, where the entire process takes place. provided.

Engineer Simón Bolívar Scheker, works supervisor of the Caasd Executing Unit, showed Hoy the entire process, from entering the plant as it is driven by gullies and until it comes out clean and returned to the Isabela River.

He explains that the water reaches some ladder-type sieves, where the present solids and coarseness are removed from where they are deposited in a container (pre-treatment area).

Then he goes to a chamber where air is injected into them, the grease and sand are removed, the former go to a centering device.

Then comes the primary settling process, where the deposit of suspended particles is favored by a purely physical process, in which 30% of the contamination and 60% of the solids are eliminated.

From this process, we go to primary decantation, where 30% of the contamination remains, in which the clarified water is observed, while the fats that remain floating are removed by means of a submerged box.

Then it goes to biological filters, in which microorganisms are created that are responsible for degrading organic matter.

From the operational control center, the entire plant is controlled with an escada system, from which the processes that occur on site are visualized, as well as a laboratory that controls water quality.

He points out that trickling beds or biological filters have a filling or synthetic material, where a biofilm is created that is responsible for degrading or oxidizing organic matter.

The biofilm is made up of algae, fungi, larvae, worms, which feed as the water passes while the liquid is purified.

From there it goes to the secondary treatment where the process takes eight hours, then it goes to a process where the water is fully clarified, the sludge goes to the bottom and sent to a line for that substance.

Then it goes to a labyrinth-type disinfection chamber, which is injected with liquid chlorine to eliminate the pathogens, viruses and protozoa that have gone through the previous process.

But in the middle part a substance is injected that eliminates the residual free chlorine, in such a way that it does not affect the existing water resources in the Isabela River.

It goes to a fully treated water tank with an elimination of fecal coliforms of more than 99%, from where it is bombarded into the Isabela River.

Gas and fertilizer. The plant has an area of ​​filtered water that is used in the industrial process and irrigate the existing gardening.

The plant has a capacity to treat 27 million gallons per day, which are returned clean to the Isabela River.

The sludge is deposited in two large tanks or anerobic digesters of 7 thousand cubic meters each, where they are concentrated in 21 hours, producing biogas that is used as fuel in the plant.

With the remaining particles, they are converted into organic fertilizer with a storage capacity of up to 140 cubic meters and that would be transferred to the land that will be irrigated by the Monte Grande dam.

Social impact

The director of the Caasd, architect Alejandro Montás, said that this plant is the most important project of the Dominican State and of the Santo Domingo Sewer Master Plan and will contribute decisively to the decontamination of the Isabela and Ozama rivers. The architect Montás points out that the station will receive the wastewater from 30 neighborhoods of Santo Domingo with a population of 450 thousand inhabitants.

Article Source