Thioguard®

The challenge of maintaining a human friendly environment is with us every day. Clean air, pure food and water, and sanitary wastewater treatment ... they are all part of our quality of life, all part of our complex ecosystem. Unfortunately they are also too often under attack. And sometimes, steps we take to bolster one part of the ecosystem can have a negative effect on another sector.

That condition is certainly true for our nation's wastewater. During the last 25 years, regulatory changes which were designed to help make sure some parts of the environment were protected, have resulted in a deterioration of municipal wastewater. These changes have fundamentally altered the physical, chemical, and biological properties of wastewater, making it more hazardous than ever before.

As the chart illustrates, (dissolved sulfide vs. total metals) the significant reduction in total metals concentration, for example, has led to dramatic increase in dissolved sulfides, and thus in the corrosive properties of wastewater. The out come has been to subject municipal sewer systems to an even higher level of corrosion.

The implications are clear, in 2000 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that municipal sewers are failing six times faster than their rehabilitation rate. What's more, the EPA predicts that by 2016, over 50% of the United States' 600,000 miles of sewer lines will be in poor, very poor, or inoperable condition.

In addition, pretreatment, pretreatment, longer retention times, and the higher strength of today's wastewater all contribute not only to corrosion, but sewer and plant odor, FOG (fats, oils, and grease) treatment plant upsets, and an increased overall cost of wastewater treatment.

But there is an answer to this dilemma ......

Thioguard®