The City of Salmon Arm bought a new floc mixer.
On April 26, council approved the purchase of one spare floc tank mixer at a price of $12,963 plus taxes.
For the uninitiated, a floc mixer is an essential component of the city’s water treatment plant in Canoe.
“Floc is actually flocculation…,” explained Rob Niewenhiuzen, the city’s director of engineering and public works. “As the water comes into the water treatment plant, there are these large tanks, they have these mixers in them, and what it does, with the added chemicals, it allows the particles in the water to group together, flocculate, and fall to the bottom. So it basically is a form of getting the particles in the water out of the water, before it goes into the filtration tanks.”
Six mixers run 24 hours per day. If a mixer were to fail, the treatment train would be hindered, affecting the water quality produced.
The purchase of a spare floc tank mixer was approved unanimously by council.
“Well we want our water to keep flocculating, so I’m going to support this motion,” Mayor Alan Harrison remarked.
The water treatment plant utilizes a direct filtration process followed by ultra violet and chlorine disinfection.
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martha.wickett@saobserver.net
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