Norman’s water plant celebrates World Water Day | | normantranscript.com

The day this story is being written, about 12 million gallons of water will flow through Norman’s water pipes, through its city’s faucets, showers, restrooms and sprinklers, city officials estimate.

Almost all of that water goes through one facility, the Vernon Campbell Water Treatment Plant, located in east Norman, near Hall Park. All of it is treated so thoroughly that Norman’s water won first place in a statewide contest last May and is in the running for a national taste-test award.

To highlight Norman’s award-winning water, the city held a tour of the plant Saturday, where attendees were briefed on water treatment, given a quick tour, and then provided with a chance to explore native flowers and grasses for landscaping, which helps bring down the need for watering during the summer.

Utilities Supervisor Andrew Bruehl described the pathway that water takes through the treatment system when it comes into the plant from its three main sources: 43 wells in east Norman, a few million gallons from Oklahoma City’s water system, and the rest from Lake Thunderbird.

That murky, silty water is drawn up into a complicated system of pipes, circulators, aerators, ionizers, filters, and other processes and it comes out just about pristine. Or, more accurately, he showed the crowd a schematic of the process.

 “The first treatment starts right here, right after it leaves this vessel when we’re adding a little bit of chlorine to bind the bromine, which is naturally occurring in the lake water,” he said. “We do that ‘cause later on down the train we’re going to hit it with ozone. We don’t want to oxidize that bromine into bromate, which is bad.”

There was much more to the process. The complicated system of chemicals, ozone treatment, filtering, and other processes settle out particulates, kill bacteria and viruses, and provide up to 24 million gallons a day to Norman residents during its summer peak. Bruehl said problems can arise when there is a break in a large main, which in the past has required residents hold off on watering until the main is fixed, and also when some part of the system has to be taken offline for cleaning. This is a common issue with the ozone system, which must be cleaned a few times in the year.

That’s the time when residents experience “lake churn,” or the water that tastes like…Lake Thunderbird.

 ”We strictly use ozone for taste and odor,” Bruehl said. “We can use it for disinfection, but we’re not using it for that now. We’re just using it strictly for tasting notes and it works. People call when we shut it off. I mean, even within a day, and sometimes we have to shut it off to do maintenance on that. We usually tell the utility department, ‘You’re going to get calls because we’ve gotta do some stuff.”

Following the presentation and short tour, attendees were invited to help plant some native flowers, grasses and other plants to encourage low-water use native Oklahoma landscaping. Broom’s Edge, Wine Cup, Purple Echinacea and Nodding Onion were among the plants. The attendees learned that the treatment center is also hosting nesting pairs of bluebirds on the site.

Jan Johnson, an attendee of the tour, said she enjoyed getting out, seeing the treatment center, and planting the native plants–she is a gardener. She said she loves living at the edge of town where she can enjoy wildlife and the outdoors.

“ It makes a thing like this important for wildlife. I love seeing the birds and I’ve got flowers everywhere,” she said.

World Water Day is an annual international event to highlight the importance of fresh water. The day is used to advocate for sustainably managing freshwater resources.