Talk:Secondary treatment

Concept
This article is intended as a method of reducing the sewage treatment article (presently at 73K) to a more manageable size. The secondary treatment summary and main article link will remain in the sewage treatment article with a bulleted list of secondary treatment technologies having separate individual articles. This article will expand the description of secondary treatment with comparative descriptions of the most widely used secondary treatment methods. Thewellman (talk) 20:46, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

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Confusing introduction
I have restored the introductory paragraph deleted by User:Jabowery, since that change may introduce additional confusion. While some may perceive secondary treatment as the second phase of what has become a widely used sequence of wastewater treatment, others may perceive secondary treatment as any wastewater treatment producing the effluent quality associated with that traditional wastewater treatment sequence. I suggest talk page discussion to formulate introductory language clarifying this duality. Thewellman (talk) 13:54, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * How about "Secondary treatment of wastewater (or sewage) is a wastewater treatment plant stage that removes settleable solids and fish-suffocating oxygen demand from organic compounds, whether dissolved or suspended. After this kind of treatment, the wastewater may be called as secondary-treated wastewater."? Jim Bowery (talk) 15:58, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * What are your thoughts about how treatments like extended aeration might be broken into traditional primary and secondary treatment stages? Thewellman (talk) 19:51, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Using excerpts
I have started to replace those paragraphs about content in sub-articles with excerpts from those sub-articles. I usually first move the content to the sub-article, merge it in, remove duplication and then replace the text with an excerpt from the sub-article. This way, we don't have to improve, update and maintain the some topic in several articles in future but only in one. I do wonder whether it's not sufficient to have an excerpt about activated sludge processes but not have content about sub-variants, i.e. SBRs and package plants for example. EMsmile (talk) 11:59, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I suggest readers finding this article for information about alternative secondary treatment technologies may be specifically interested in the lower capital cost options. Eliminating those options from this description may prevent those readers from finding that information in the activated sludge article. Thewellman (talk) 22:24, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I have no intention of eliminating low cost options, far from it. What I suggested is that we use excerpts instead of two versions of text for the same thing. E.g. an excerpt about "constructed wetlands" describes constructed wetlands simply by using the lead from the constructed wetlands article. Perhaps you are not familiar with the excerpts concept? Have a look in the source editor, perhaps it's clearer then how it works. EMsmile (talk) 01:28, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The excerpt format has unfortunate limitations in appropriately encompassing the same subject from differing perspectives of different articles. I restored sourced information omitted from the excerpt which replaced it. It might alternatively be possible to include that missing information in the activated sludge article, but at some point the length of the excerpted material may be greater than necessary for this article. Thewellman (talk) 02:22, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Lacking information on anaerobic treatment processes
We ought to add some information about anaerobic treatment processes to this article, which can also be a type of secondary treatment. The available sub-articles are not yet great but this can be a starting point: Anaerobic digester types. EMsmile (talk) 12:23, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I have now made some changes along those lines to the lead. Added UASB as an example.EMsmile (talk) 03:23, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Outdated information
Hi I don't agree with your edit summary for this change where you wrote "restore information lost in previous edits". That information was not "lost" but I removed it for a reason which I explained in each of my edit summaries. Let's not enter in an edit war but discuss here on the talk page before you revert a change that I had made with justification in my edit summaries (please). Here is what I had written there: "updated definition on secondary treatment using Metcalf and Eddy definition rather than some older EPA definitions that seemed to be based on BOD removal." also "this is too much detail here in a section on "definitions". It is US centric. similar content is available at sewage treatment, so no need to have it here as well. The definitions section should be small and concise.". This statement is not correct as a general statement, it would have to be qualified Primary treatment settling removes about half of the solids and a third of the BOD from raw sewage., like "A publication from the US in 1956 stated that...". You took that statement from Abbott (1956). An equivalent statement is not available in the 4th edition of Metcalf and Eddy so it would be misleading to provide this statement as if it's a universal fact. It might have applied to primary settling tanks in New York at that time. You have no evidence that it is a correct statement for any primary treatment anywhere. EMsmile (talk) 01:26, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I also disagree with this statement and had removed it (like I said above): The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defined secondary treatment based on the performance observed at late 20th-century bioreactors treating typical United States municipal sewage. Secondary treated sewage is expected to produce effluent with a monthly average of less than 30 mg/l BOD and less than 30 mg/l suspended solids. Weekly averages may be up to 50 percent higher. A sewage treatment plant providing both primary and secondary treatment is expected to remove at least 85 percent of the BOD and suspended solids from domestic sewage. The EPA regulations describe stabilization ponds as providing treatment equivalent to secondary treatment removing 65 percent of the BOD and suspended solids from incoming sewage and discharging approximately 50 percent higher effluent concentrations than modern bioreactors. The regulations also recognize the difficulty of meeting the specified removal percentages from combined sewers, dilute industrial wastewater, or Infiltration/Inflow.. We provided a current definition (Metcalf and Eddy) earlier on, so we don't need an alternative definition by the EPA which is older (1984) and which gives specific values for BOD and SS. I really don't understand why you insist on using those very old sources from the US when we have more up to date publications nowadays which are also more global in outlook and don't present data from the US as if it applied everywhere in the world. EMsmile (talk) 01:26, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I suggest the edit summary was inadequate to support removal of sourced information. There is no reason to remove a sourced estimate of anticipated removal by primary treatment if you have no better information. I moved the USEPA information from the definitions section to the design considerations section. The replacement definition from Metcalf and Eddy omitted anticipated effluent quality provided by the removed text. It is difficult to assess the necessity for treatment without an estimated effluent quality from that treatment. Thewellman (talk) 02:53, 30 August 2021 (UTC)