Flint Water Crisis
In April of 2016, the city of Michigan chose to switch the water source for the city of Flint from the then, Lake Huron to Flint River. This was a temporary switch during the build of the proposed pipeline connecting Lake Huron with the city. There was significant opposition to the use of water from the Flint River by the majorly poor population; due to past chemical leaks and degradation. Since the 1970s, the water in the river Flint has been severely contaminated by coliform bacteria, low dissolved oxygen, oil and toxic substances.
The switch made the city open to these known and other unexpected issues. The water in the river was proven to be nineteen times more corrosive than that at Lake Huron by a study conducted by the University of Virginia. The increased corrosion potential led to lead metal being leached from old piping in many of the old and poorly maintained dwellings. The increase in lead in water causes major biological issues like impaired cognition, behavioral disorders, hearing problems, delayed puberty, reduced fetal during gestation and various other heart, kidney and the nervous system issues. The people filed a class action suit against the Department of Environment Quality citing these health issues and possible long-term effects on the local families. The administration had allocated about 9 million USD annually towards water treatment and provision for Flint. The case accuses the administration of not treating the water body with anti-corrosives prior to dispensing to users. This could have been taken care of by installing a water treatment plant that employs water treatment technology that could bring up the dissolved oxygen in the water body, generated biocide and brought water to potable standards. Should there be any similar issue in the future, we at Dynamic Water Technologies have a non-chemical water treatment process that has been tested in various water conditions.
Introducing the Powell Electrocoagulation System (EC) that has been field tested to remove 98 - 99 % of fecal coliform bacteria, 95 – 99 % of metallic ions in even at flow rates up to 2,500 gallons per minute. It has been proven to produce potable water even in emergency conditions within the first ten minutes of operation. The presence of metals like lead and corrosive elements can be controlled using non-chemical methods like electrocoagulation. The Powell EC technology has been tested for the past 25 years and can be used to reduce coliform bacteria and other biomasses from any water source using the century-old concept of coagulation in a modern optimized system design. The process generates bubbles of air that rise through the system carrying with it dissolved salts, metallic ions, oils, and microorganisms. The system is designed to remove contaminants at high flow rates with minimal downtime and low operating costs. If this system is used prior to dispensing water to tenants in your building, the incidence of lead poisoning, coliform infections, and piping corrosions can be eliminated.
Please contact us should you have more questions on the process and how it can be employed for your system. We guarantee that we can design a system to meet any requirement.
