Richmond's Award-Winning Water Highlighted During National Drinking Water Week

The City of Richmond Department of Public Utilities (DPU) celebrated National Drinking Water

Week, May 6–12, 2018. “Protect the Source” was the theme for this year’s campaign and provides the opportunity for partners of the American Water Works Association to highlight the vital role water plays in our daily lives and the quality of life we enjoy.

During National Drinking Water Week, representatives from DPU served Richmond’s award-winning water at various water fill stations in the city.

The City of Richmond is one of Virginia’s largest potable water producers, with a Water Plant that has the capacity to treat up to 132 million gallons of water a day from the James River.

The treatment plant and distribution system of water mains, pumping stations and storage facilities provide water to more than 62,000 customers in the city. The facility also provides water to the surrounding area through wholesale contracts with Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover counties and indirectly to Powhatan and Goochland counties. The utility also maintains 1,200 miles of water mains, city fire hydrants for fire protection and 13 pumping stations throughout the city.

A Day with the Strong Waste Program

The treatment of wastewater from restaurants, apartment buildings, commercial businesses, car washes, industrial plants, breweries, hair salons, printers, and similar businesses that have wastewater discharges different from the typical household is a significant expense for DPU, which can recover some of the costs associated with treating wastewater from industrial users through the Strong Waste Surcharge Program. The program measures concentrations of biochemical and oxygen demand, suspended solids, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus in annual random wastewater samples from these types of customers and adds surcharges to their utility bill. The tests involve visiting all those businesses at least once a year and taking samples over a 3-4 day period.

To view a slideshow, click on the first photo.

John Newton, environment tech, is back from collecting the day's first commercial and industrial wastewater samples as part of the Strong Waste Program.

Billing team members Carolyn Cunningham and Flora Edmonds watch Water Quality Technician Katie Dayley test some pretreatment samples.

Senior Chemist Miles Mangrum analyzes wastewater plant and industrial samples.

Senior Chemist Thomas May

Remove the manhole cover.

Pull out the previously placed sampler machine that has been collecting wastewater samples.

Read the calibrations and reset.

Harvest the wastewater samples.

Next we check out some drains behind a grocery store.

This one is separating out the grease.

More grease.

A lot of toilet paper in this one. The hose goes in to collect a sample.

The sampler machine is brought up and emptied.

Thanks for the demonstrations on what you do, Mr. Newton!