All posts by Erin McNeely

Behind the Scenes, Distance Learning

Charlotte Water Distance Learning: The Journey of Water

Activity: Educational article about the journey of our water and its treatment process.

Age range: All ages

Our water goes on quite a journey from the Catawba River, through our treatment processes, up to our water towers, into your homes and businesses and back out again. In this lesson, we will provide you with some step-by-step insight into the full cycle of our water.

Step 1: Pumping the Water

Our Pump stations are located at Lake Norman and Mountain Island Lake. Raw water is pulled from the lakes and pumped to our three treatment plants – Lee S. Dukes Water Treatment Plant, Franklin Water Treatment Plant, and Vest Water Treatment Plant. This water is pumped at night when the cost of electricity is low. Water from Lake Normal flows by gravity to the Lee S. Duke Water Treatment Plant.

Step 2: Water Treatment

When the water arrives at the water treatments plants, it is cleaned through coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, and filtration. An average of 108 million gallons of water is pumped at our water treatment facilities each day. After we treat the water, it is distributed to businesses, factories, schools, and your home!

Kris Del Valle, Water Treatment Plant Operator, explains more about the water treatment process.

Step 3: Water Tower Storage

Once water has been treated at one of treatment plants, some of that water is pumped to a nearby water tower for storage and later distribution. Water towers also serve the purpose of pressurizing the distribution system. You can learn more about this step in the process by building your own water tower at home!

Step 4: Storm Water

Rainwater is another important factor in the journey of our water. The runoff from rainfall goes directly into a stormwater drain and straight into our streams. These drains are managed by the Storm Water Services department, who works year-round to manage the runoff from rainfall, reduce flooding, restore floodplains and protect the water quality of surface waters county-wide.​

Step 5: Wastewater Treatment

Once the wastewater leaves a business or home, it travels from your home, place of business or school through 4,200 miles of wastewater pipes to one of our treatment plants. The wastewater is separated into liquids and solids. The liquids are cleaned and put back into our creeks and streams, the solids are converted to biosolids.  ​

Henry Eudy, Wastewater Treatment Plant Supervisor, explains more about the wastewater treatment process.

Step 6: Biosolids

You may be wondering, what are biosolids?

Biosolids are nutrient-rich byproducts of wastewater treatment. They can be used on hay fields as fertilizer. Through biosolids management, solid residue from wastewater treatment is processed to reduce or eliminate pathogens and minimize odors, forming a safe, beneficial agricultural product. Biosolids are carefully monitored and must be used in accordance with regulatory requirements.​

If you would like to read more about biosolids, please visit our biosolids page.

The Charlotte Water Distance Learning activities are provided in partnership with Discovery Place, Inc.

Behind the Scenes, Distance Learning

Charlotte Water Distance Learning: Coloring!

Age range: All ages!

Activity: Charlotte Water’s customized coloring pages, and the ICMA coloring book.

Break out your crayons and colored pencils! We are inviting kids and adults of all ages to engage their creative side and color any and all of our customized coloring sheets. We have also included a coloring book from the ICMA (International City/County Management Association) that shows the work of various local government employees and their contributions to our community – be sure to check out page #15 in their coloring book!

Once you’ve completed your coloring, you can show off your artwork by displaying the pages in your window at home – preferably in a place where folks outside can see it displayed. Something small can go a long way to brighten someone’s day! Or as always, share with us on social media!

charlotte-water-coloring-sheetDownload
drink-water-coloring-sheetDownload
flow-free-coloring-sheetDownload
water-wagon-coloring-sheetDownload

ICMA Coloring Book – check out page 15!

Share with us here:

Behind the Scenes, Distance Learning

Charlotte Water Distance Learning: Build Your Own Water Tower

Age range: Upper Elementary and Middle School Students

Challenge: To build a structurally efficient model water tower that holds water and can be filled and drained quickly, while also being aesthetically pleasing.

This week’s activity is to build your own water tower at home! In years past, Charlotte Water has held a competition for students to build their own water tower to be reviewed by a panel of judges, but as an alternative we have provided this activity to allow anyone to try this out at home.

The purpose for this project is not only to have fun and experiment with building your own tower, but also to bring awareness to the importance of reliable drinking water and to the various jobs and duties within the water profession. This project does this by having learners develop their own idea into a functioning water tower, just like water professionals do in the real world!

While designing your water tower, it is important to focus on these four criteria: structural efficiency, hydraulic efficiency, cost efficiency and design ingenuity. Understand and achieve these criteria to do well! They are explained below.

Structural Efficiency

Structural efficiency is calculated by dividing the weight of the model when it is empty by the average height of the tank, times (multiplied by) the amount of water it holds. The lower this number the better. This is shown with the following formula:

Remember, the tank should be between:

  • 1.5 feet from the base of the tower to the bottom of the tank,
  • 2.5 feet from the base of the tower to the hydraulic height (the point where the tower cannot hold any more water, i.e. top or overflow point), and
  • Base should fit within a one square foot area.

Hydraulic Efficiency

Hydraulic efficiency is the amount of time it takes to fill the model with one gallon of water and drain it back out again. The less time it takes to fill and drain the tank through the connector the better.

Cost Efficiency

Cost efficiency measures your ability to save money while building your model. For this project, we encourage builders to use materials that they already have, and to only make purchases if necessary. Once complete, see how well you did using the cost efficiency rating system below:

$0.00 – $5.00 = 5 stars

$5.01 – $10.00 = 4 stars

$10.01 – $15.00 = 3 stars

$15.01 – $20.00 = 2 stars

More than $20.00 = 1 star

Design Ingenuity

Ingenuity is how much imagination and skill were used in your model. Water professionals must often use ingenuity; they use skill and imagination to solve difficult problems. It is important to keep the following in mind when designing and building your tower:

  • Craftsmanship: Is the model sturdy, do the parts fit together nicely?
  • Imagination: Are the design or materials unique?
  • Artistic merit: Does the model have creative ideas, colors or themes?

Once you have completed your project, we would love to see how you did! Feel free to share on social media and tag us!

Good luck, engineers!

Construction, Project & Construction Update

Construction Update: Stewart Creek Greenway Closure – Update #5

Charlotte Water crews have been working diligently over the last few months on the extensive emergency wastewater pipe replacement under the Stewart Creek Greenway. The pipe fell and broke into the eroded creek bank in early February.

Here is an overview of what’s been done over the last few weeks, and what is coming up, as we enter into the final stages of the repairs:

Week of April 27:

During the last week in April, progress continued as sheet piles were being trimmed and restoration along the creek bank continued. However, heavy rains during this week caused the creek to rise to an extremely high level and washed out a portion of the newly restored creek bank. Fine soils in the imported backfill were washed away leaving behind larger rocks that were contained in the fill material. Crews determined that they would need to stabilize the bank with heavy matting to help prevent this from happening again. 

Also during this week, crews were able to remove the temporary above-ground piping  from the worksite. Meetings began with Mecklenburg County staff to discuss restoration along the greenway trail.

Week of May 4:

Crews removed the gravel access roads at the Tuckaseegee Road bridge, and hauled off piles of dirt stored throughout the site. 

Week of May 11:

Crews completed creek bank restoration, and are continuing to remove access roads, complete rough grading, and continue site clean up.

Another meeting with the County will occur again later this month as a follow up on any additional work that is needed before crews move into final grading and restoration of the greenway trail.