WATER AND WASTE WATER ENGINEERING CEG 847

REPORT ON THE VISIT TO THE UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS WATER AND WASTEWATER TREATMENT FACILITY.

BY

UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS AKOKA

OCTOBER 2012

INTRODUCTION The supply of portable water has been of great concern in developing nations as the cases of water borne diseases like cholera, diahorrea and the likes have been on the increase. This is largely attributed to the presence of micro-organisms causing these diseases in most of the water used by most of the populace in the rural areas and some in the urban areas who get their water from rivers, open wells and through broken supply pipes laid in drainages. The improper treatment waste water has also been identified as a source of pollution to water bodies and the surrounding environment as it is dumped into the water bodies, causing great harm to the aquatic life, releasing foul odour. This report shows the treatment processes for both water supply and waste water.

SCOPE This report highlights the visit to the service section to see the water supply treatment process and the waste water treatment process used in the University of Lagos Akoka Lagos.

WATER TREATMENT PROCESS

In the University of Lagos, the treatment of the water supply begins when water is pumped from four deep wells (boreholes) into a common holding tank through separate pipes. Caustic Soda (NaOH) and Chlorine is added to the water in the tank to start the process of coagulation and flocculation and also the disinfection of the water. After the thorough mix, the water is the pumped through three different filtration medium of varying aggregate graded from fine to coarse from where it flows through the outlet pipe to a concrete underground reservoir for storage. Another concrete underground reservoir holds treated water received from the Lagos State Water Corporation (LSWC) for emergency purposes. Water from the underground reservoir is the pumped up to a spherical steel water tank, 100ft high above the ground and capable of holding a volume of 60,000gal of water using high capacity pumps. From this point on, portable water is supplied to the various end users by gravity.

WASTE WATER TREATMENT

The University of Lagos treats wastewater with the use of engineered constructed wetlands which consists of physical, biological and chemical processes. The constructed wetland system includes the following: Settling of suspended particulate matter Filtration and chemical precipitation Adsorption and ion exchange on the surfaces of plants Substrate sediment and litter breakdown Transformation of pollutants by micro-organisms and plants Uptake and transformation of nutrients by micro-organisms, plants and predation Natural die off of pathogens

To begin the above processes, the wastewater treatment of the University community is first collected, all 380m3 generated daily. This wastewater flows through a carefully planned network of sewer lines to a central sewage pumping station from where it is pumped to two settling tanks with a combined capacity of 2000m3. Next large particles are screened off in a primary treatment inception chamber and sent into a septic tank. The effluent from the septic tank becomes the influent into the constructed wetland system which contains different sizes of gravel and ocean sharp sand as the wetland media.

The effluent from the constructed wetland comes without any odour and is regularly analyzed for physical, chemical and microbiological quality before being used for fish farming and later discharged into the water body (Lagoon).

WASTEWATER SETTLEMENT TANK

A VIEW OF THE WETLAND SYSTEM

A VIEW OF THE 100FT HIGH 60,000GAL CAPACITY SPHERICAL STEEL TANK