August 12, 2020 (Wednesday)
As I stood at the sink in my kitchen, watching the water level drop down and finally out a hole at the bottom, the thought ran across my mind, “I’ll bet that some people live out their entire lives without ever thinking about where the waste water goes.
At my house, it’s pretty simple. The water drains through pipes into a septic tank in my back yard. I’ve seen it many times. Due to the fact of living in this house more than 50 years, the system has been adjusted and repaired several times. When it works right, it works fine.
But I live outside the city of Rockport, in Aransas County. What about the folks in town? Where does their waste water go? Here’s the answer from their web site:
The City of Rockport Public Works’ Wastewater Collection and Treatment Department services and maintains over 4000 sanitary sewer connections and over 60 miles of sanitary sewer lines. This includes service and repair on existing lines and the installation of new lines and new sanitary sewer connections.
The Waste Water Department has a preventative maintenance program that pressure cleans sanitary sewer lines and performs daily inspections, cleaning and maintenance of 40 sanitary sewer lift stations. The Waste Water Department also operates a 2.5 MGD (Million Gallons per Day) Waste Water Treatment Plant. Effluent from the treatment plant runs through an open waterway into Little Bay. The waste water treatment plant is operated under the regulatory guidelines of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
I think I’m safe in saying that waste water treatment in big cities follows the same general pattern but is more complex.
What about our water source? We water our yard with water from a well which uses a submersible pump. The well is about 180 feet deep, I think. We’ve had it repaired several times through the years.
The rest of our water for drinking and household use out here in the county comes from the City of Rockport. The City of Rockport Public Works’ Water Storage and Distribution Department services and maintains over 9000 water connections and over 100 miles of waterlines. The Water Department services and maintains two water pump stations with four ground water storage tanks and three elevated water tower storage tanks to insure an adequate water supply.
Rockport buys treated water from the San Patricio Municipal Water District (SPMWD) who, in turn, buys raw water from the City of Corpus Christi. Water is drawn from the Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon Reservoir System, both within the Nueces River Basin, and from Lake Texana via the Mary Rhodes Pipeline. In the future water will be transported from the Colorado River to the Mary Rhodes pipeline at Lake Texana.
Lake Corpus Christi, which stores 242,241 acre-feet of water, was dedicated April 26, 1958 with the construction of Wesley Seale Dam. Water is transferred from the Nueces River, cleaned and treated through an elaborate system and then stored in tanks above and below ground for distribution. Approximately 28 billion gallons of water are treated each year. Corpus Christi operates five pumping stations, four elevated storage tanks and maintains 1,600 miles of pipeline
Water is precious and the Sons of the Pioneers sing this old song about it.