Sewage Treatment For Improving The Quality Medellin River

SEWAGE TREATMENT FOR
IMPROVING THE QUALITY
MEDELLIN RIVER

Katherine Velilla García
Chemical Engineering student

University of Antioquia
June 4, 2011

SEWAGE TREATMENT FOR IMPROVING THE QUALITY
MEDELLIN RIVER
Medellin is a city that over the years has embarked on a path of development and
growth that is reflected in culture, public spaces, infrastructure, innovations andinvestments in all cultural, political and economic. Along with this development
experiment and experience the city population and industrial growth, causing
increased pollution and waste caused by the different sectors, which were to stop
especially when river. For this reason, we began implementing a series of projects
aimed at recovery and remediatio n of Medellin River at the head of the EmpresasPublicas de Medellin who were put to the task of organizing a system of sewage
collection to allow for a treatment and thus prevent the river continued to increase
its level of contamination.
The sewage is a kind of water that is contaminated by organic waste, human or
animal, and industrial occurring in homes and factories, for which, the right not to
develop a treatment would createpollution problems. Sewage treatment is a series
of physical, chemical and biological develop to remove contaminants in water and
then producing environmentally clean or reusable. T he importance of this treatment
is that the failure to develop could lead to large -scale environmental problems,
ranging from the increase and accumu lation of wastes, loss of Medellin river, water
pollution and odorproduction due to the decomposition of organic waste, all
accompanied by diseases that could potentially produce due to poor sanitation.

Medellin River view.

This issue is of great importance for society in general, as the Medellin River has
become the cornerstone of our city and represents the achievements, advances
and innovations that experience, which can be evidenced in many ways. Forexample, we have the Metro, one of the proudest works of our city, was
constructed in such a way that always followed the line of the river, even those
separated only when the Metro starts to penetrate the center of the city. In addition,
we see how the Christmas season, the river and its surroundings are decorated to
the point of becoming a great tourist event. This is why the care,preservation and
improvement of water quality of the Medellin River is subject of general interest.
Chemical engineering as such, may contribute t o improvement would be largely
water quality, as all treatment processes of sewage are produced require chemical
processes should be well structured and substantiated for an optimal work.

Medellin River during Christmas

For several years, theMedellin river has become one of the main concerns of the
city, of a hundred miles to cover this, only three of them are free of contamination,
the remaining miles are severely polluted due to the fact that was discharged
sewage from the city (which will produce strong smells in summer) and garbage
that is thrown to him by people who live on its outskirts. Therefore, the municipality
hasundertaken numerous projects among which is the development and creation
of more plants aimed at sewage treatment and policies that address the prohibition
of littering and dump sewage directly into the river without having had prior
treatment no matter how minimal. Following this policy and governmental
concerns, started operating in 1990 the first central sewage treatment in San
Fernando, south ofthe Valle de Aburrá in the municipality of Itagui, by the
Empresas Publicas de Medellin.
To achieve the Medellin River Sanitation Public companies developed a system
that includes three phases: the collection, tr ansportation and treatment of
wastewater. This process begins with the construction of sewers on both sides of

the river and the streams where this ends, these pipes are called...