History of Water In Windsor
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The History of Water in Windsor
During the late 1800's, getting water was not as easy as simply turning on a tap - most often it had to be carried from a river or lake or pulled from a well.
In 1857, Windsor installed a wooden hand pump at the foot of Brock St. on the ferry dock, and water was pumped into a wooden water barrel on a two-wheel cart pulled by a horse. This was the sole source of water for the town of Windsor at the time.
Throughout the years, Windsor tried to advance the water services provided to its residents by installing town pumps on the Detroit River and preparing plans for a new pumping station.
It was not until 1889 that the Windsor Pumping Station was built. The Chief Engineer of the Water Commission was paid the princely sum of $1,100.00 a year, including house rent and fuel oil, to oversee the operation.
During the summer of 1916, the Essex Border Utilities Commission was officially formed and would be responsible for the construction of a trunk sewer and a plant for the treatment of sewage and water with means to carry water to all its municipalities. The task was enormous, but within a year, they had installed equipment that would carry liquid chlorine to treat the water. The cost of this came to a grand total of $625.00.
Windsor was certainly advancing in its care of water but it would be another decade before filtered water would reach its residents. On May 9, 1926, the first supply of filtered water began to flow from the Windsor Pumping station.
In the summer of 1929, a water connection was made to Detroit through the Detroit-WindsorTunnel to cover any water failures between the two cities. The line still exists today and is used by the Tunnel Corporation.
In 1935, the body that regulates Windsor's water today was formed. The Windsor Utilities Commission is responsible for supplying water to 60,000 residential homes, 8,000 businesses, and for ensuring the quality and purity of our water.
Windsor is one of the fortunate communities to boast a top-of-the-line treatment facility - in fact, it is one of the leading edge utilities in North America. This is due in part to the $4.7 million invested in the creation of a facility that boasts a team of dedicated professionals who monitor every process in detail, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, a state of the art master control centre, but more importantly, it utilizes one of the leading processes for purifying water - OZONE. Basically OZONE, as a purifier, is regarded as the best water treatment there is. It's actually a form of Oxygen that gets produced by an electrical discharge and is excellent at disinfecting and purifying materials it contacts.
The ozone is produced by treating oxygen with electricity....as oxygen is a stable gas you must first make it reactive by transforming it into ozone. Ozone, due to it being reactive and a strong oxidant, is much stronger than chlorine or any other commercially used disinfectant.
To put this in layman's terms - Ozone is generated by passing oxygen gas inside an enclosed stainless steel vessel, to which an electrical current is applied. The resulting arcing or corona discharge, is what transforms the oxygen into the highly reactive ozone. The ozone is then injected into the water, through diffusers, with the ozone gas reacting instantly to disinfect the raw water, by attacking the disease causing organisms contained within our source water. Since the ozonation process allows us to use fewer chemicals, yet provide cleaner, safer water, it is good for the environment as well.
Now, you might be wondering what we do with the ozone once it is has been used for treating the water. While most of the ozone is consumed in the disinfection process, any excess ozone is passed through an ozone destruction unit, which utilizes a catalyst to remove any residual ozone prior to it being released back into the atmosphere. Sophisticated monitoring is utilized to ensure that the correct amount of ozone is generated for the disinfection process and to ensure that no ozone is emitted into the atmosphere.
Any excess ozone that remains within the water after disinfection, must also be removed. This is done by adding a chemical called calcium thiosulfate to the water. Thereby ensuring that the water is ozone free prior to moving on to the next treatment step.
In the next phase, the water moves into large tanks where additional chemicals are added and heavy particles are formed. While it may look less than appealing, these particles indicate that the water is being cleaned properly. The chemicals attach themselves to organic materials within the water which cause the particles to form.
Once the particles are formed, the water goes through the settling tank where the clear water goes to the top and is then sent on to the final filtration operation. When completed, chlorine is added. You might be wondering, with all this treatment, why do any chemicals have to be added at all? Chlorine is still added because when it goes into the distribution system it helps maintain the integrity of the water even if it passes through old pipes or to other places that are not as up-to-date.
As the particles settle to the bottom of the settling tank, a sludge forms which is then processed utilizing a centrifugal process to dewater the solids. The resulting solids are ultimately disposed of at the local landfill.
The clean filtered water is then sent out to you! In Windsor, The Albert H. Weeks Water Treatment Plant supplies approximately 180 million litres of water a day, and on a hot summer day - well over 250 million litres of water a day.
