Talk:Waste stabilization pond

--Alex 08:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): SoCalYooper.

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Copyedit changes
Hi. I made several dozen standard copyedit changes. As a professional editor, I thought it might be worthwhile to explain to the folks working on this article what most of the changes were:


 * Misspellings were corrected. In particular, there were several situations where two words were merged into a compound word that does not exist in American or British English.
 * Incorrect grammar was corrected.
 * Redundant words such as "also", "finally" and "zone" were removed.
 * Elipses (dots) were removed. None were needed in this article.

There were some situations where I wasn't sure of the meaning, and I left those unchanged, even if they did not look correct.

Of the many aspects of this article which might be expanded in an interesting way, I find the use of fish in this process surprising.

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 10:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I have an idea. Why don't we look at what had happened?
After thinking about the topic and the article, I started coming up with questions. Again here it is.


 * What are the range of costs to build? How much for upkeep? Are we talking hundreds or millions, here?
 * Costs can vary from individual time and effort similar to residential landscaping for a small pond to significant capital investment and routine maintenance expenses for industrial or municipal wastewater treatment. All ponds require maintenance, and the frequency of maintenance depends upon the quantity of waste received.  Most ponds convert waste to biomass which must be periodically removed.  Settling biomass will otherwise decrease pond depth and floating biomass scum functionally stops treatment by shading ultraviolet light and preventing gas transfer at the pond surface.  Biomass is typically removed from the pond as a wet sludge which is difficult to handle and may become offensively anaerobic in the drying process.


 * Are these ponds built by professionals, or just using commercial supplies?
 * Professional advice generally provides better spillway and seepage control, and may be important in determining required pond surface area and detention time for effective waste treatment.


 * What are the alternatives? I can understand that sewage cannot be dumped in urban areas, but why not in farming country? Aren't these animal byproducts fertilizer?
 * Animal waste has similarly offensive odors, pathogen concerns, and watercourse eutrophication potential of human sewage.


 * Is any part of construction and use subject to building codes or official review?
 * Potentially yes, depending upon local codes.


 * What, exactly, does the "cleaning"? Plants? Bacteria? Fish?
 * Ultraviolet radiation from the sun may kill undesirable micro-organisms if the pond water is clear, but will be less effective if the pond is turbid or shaded by nearby structures or aquatic vegetation. Gas transfer at the pond surface is also important.  Oxygen from the atmosphere will enable some micro-organisms to chemically convert organic material to carbon dioxide or to growth of plants and animals living in the pond.  Undesirable gasses like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide may be released from the water to the atmosphere (good for water quality, but may cause odor problems).  Evaporation increases concentrations of salts, metals, and some other chemicals.  Some of these chemicals may precipitate or sorb to the biomass accumulating in the pond, but the remainder will leave with pond overflow.


 * Is it correct that the purpose is to only to remove anaerobic bacteria?
 * What value do the treatment ponds have, when used in conjunction with septic tanks in urban areas?
 * Why is it necessary to have three "levels" of fish? For four "zones"? Aren't there fish that swim to all depths?
 * What does a "complete ecosystem" mean? Isn't the idea for the ponds to act as a part of a larger ecosystem?
 * The reference for "Water Works" leads to an interesting page. The stated goals there are to create "green water" (a concept that is not covered in Wiki, btw, but might well be). Is creating "green water" always the goal of these ponds?
 * In terms of avoiding advertising, it might be good to include a link that the Water Works site does, to an industry association: www.greenroofs.org
 * Particularly in regard to the roof versions, are these meant to be economical (as the other treatment ponds appear to intend), or is this intended partly as an "ecological proof of concept", rather like putting solar panels on roofs?
 * And this is just one related to my personal situation: Are treatment ponds practical in areas where there's limited year-round water availability?

Why do you need to do this ?

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 04:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * These are good questions. The situation described in this article is firstly a pond.  Some things happening in a pond may be called treatment; but it is important to consider potentially undesirable consequences of ponds.  Most ponds provide mosquito breeding habitat; and people can drown in larger ponds.  Pond construction carries a liability risk of damage from unexpected release of water contained therein.  I have inserted brief answers within a few of your questions above.Thewellman (talk) 21:11, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Anaerobic lagoon
Is this process also called anaerobic lagoon? Alex Marshall (talk) 12:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Energy production
Besides purifying the water, energy production is perhaps also possible with reed bed systems; perhaps include image on the right ? KVDP (talk) 13:27, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Third World Applications
I am really interested in whether or not these systems could solve both water scarcity and water contamination problems in the Third world. For instance water in India is highly contaminated with both fecal bacteria and Arsenic. Can plants be used to solve these problems? Paul Layne (talk) 00:12, 22 September 2011 (UTC)Paul Layne

Merge with article on stabilization pond
I have just done a clean-up of this page as it was mixing up information of reed beds (constructed wetlands) with treatment ponds. I further propose to take the content and merge it into the page on stabilization pond which is a much better page already and deals with the same subject. We could then have a re-direct from treatment pond to stabilization pond. EvM-Susana (talk) 10:11, 24 April 2015 (UTC) The article was actually describing what is known as a surface flow constructed wetland, not what is known as wastewater treatment ponds. - Thinking about it further, I think the article should be given a different name to make it clearer what it's all about. EvM-Susana (talk) 10:18, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Don't agree with recent edits
User:SoCalYooper: did you take a look at the hatnote before you started to edit this article? It said: "This article is about ponds similar to surface flow constructed wetlands. For wastewater treatment ponds, see stabilization pond." You have now made it into another article on stabilization ponds. Rather you should have edited the article on stabilization pond. You probably would have found that a lot of your information is already on there. Now we have a messy situation where two articles describe the same thing. This needs to be resolved. EvMsmile (talk) 11:26, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

By the way, the references are also not great (seems like an arbitrary selection) and too few - the same two references are used many times over. There's better ones out there (e.g. textbook Metcalf and Eddy) EvMsmile (talk) 12:15, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Treatment pond. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
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Merger proposal
I suggest this page to be merged into stabilization pond and a redirect is placed afterwards. It's covering the same content. EvMsmile (talk) 12:14, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I councur with the suggestion the this page be merged into stabilization pond and a redirect is placed afterwards. I further suggest this page be merged with aerated lagoon and facultative lagoon, and a redirect is placed afterwards for these pages also. As these also cover the same/similar content. Gingineer (talk) 04:45, 07 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Do I understand the proposal would be to replace three articles with redirects, and merge all material from four articles into one article? While I can see the advantages of such a proposal, I have some concern about the boundaries for such combination, and the possibility the combined article might become too large. For example, would constructed wetland and/or settling pond also be appropriate for merger? Should the aerated lagoon be included, or does the addition of mechanical aeration invite merger with oxidation ditch and/or extended aeration. Specifically, I would like agreement as to what the article will cover and what will be excluded. Some of these terms are more ambiguous than others. I suggest the merger be conditioned on agreement of a lead section for the article defining what the article does and does not include. Would someone care to draft the lead section here for discussion? Thewellman (talk) 05:59, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I suggest (please feel free to edit this -- internal links will be important):

Ponds are depressions holding water confined by earthen structures. Wastewater in selected adjective(s) ponds is typically cleansed by both biochemical oxidation and solid phase separation, although oxidation may be insignificant for inorganic wastes. The extent to which a pond may be useful for either purpose depends upon the nature of the waste and the treatment objectives. The primary advantage of a pond is low operating costs over a finite time period. The time period depends upon the rate of solid phase accumulation and vegetative growth which will reduce pond volume, waste residence time, and treatment efficiency. Disadvantages include large space requirements, limited ability to sustain effective biochemical oxidation when temperature or wind conditions change, and temporary loss of treatment capability during solid phase removal operations at the end of design life. (possibly insert some sentences describing what this pond article does not include)


 * Following this lead, I would suggest a series of sections with each describing a variation (as presently contained in the articles suggested for merger) including how it varies from the others. To keep the merged article at a reasonable length, it may be appropriate to provide main article links to some types of ponds rather than completely merging their contents. Thewellman (talk) 13:20, 7 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of Gingineer to merge several of these treatment pond articles together as they have evolved separately but they actually do belong together and describe the same thing from different angles. And no, constructed wetland is very different - no need to merge that one. Regarding the new lead that you, Thewellman, suggested: I find your proposed text fairly OK but too difficult to understand for laypersons (and vegetative growth is not relevant in such stabilization ponds). My suggestion would be to go with the one we have here: stabilization pond and then build on that once we have merged the content from the other articles into that one. EMsmile (talk) 22:58, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Articles should remain separate if their differences cannot be explained to laypersons, since a combined article would simply invite confusion. Aerated lagoons are distinctly different from facultative lagoons because the stratification essential to the latter can easily be lost by mixing aerators. I strongly disagree with the proposal to merge first and work out the details later. I question why vegetative growth would not be considered relevant to stabilization ponds, as I have seen many treatment ponds with heavy growth of Lemnoideae reducing surface area available for oxygen transfer, and with various types of rooted vegetation colonizing the shallow shorelines and extending out into deeper water. Exclusion of constructed wetlands will require a rational explanation understandable by laypersons of the functional difference between a constructed wetland and the macrophytic plants mentioned in the lead suggested by EMsmile. Thewellman (talk) 01:36, 11 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I think if you read the article on constructed wetlands it should be very clear how this differs from a waste stabilization pond. Think of a subsurface flow constructed wetland in particular. The treatment action comes mainly from the filtering through the medium in which the plants have their roots. In ponds on the other hand, the plants are not part of the design (if you have observed heavy growth then this is an operational problem but not a design feature); except in the case of algal ponds where the algae is there on purpose. Anyhow, the best desription of the different pond types is in the eCompendium of EAWAG. If we have time to improve the content on Wikipedia about ponds then we should follow their descriptions, see here: http://ecompendium.sswm.info/ . I am also fine with keeping aerated lagoons separate as there is already a separate article about it. In my opinion, the article about waste stabilization ponds should be the main article from where the other articles about ponds -that are used for wastewater treatment - branch off. The current one on treatment ponds is in my opinion to be merged into waste stabilization ponds which seems to be the more commonly used term in the literature. Or, if the article on treatment ponds is regarded as more broad than waste stabilization pond, e.g. to also include stormwater treatment, then this is another option and needs to be made clearer. At the moment it is not clear how "treatment pond" is different to "waste stabilization pond" in Wikipedia. EMsmile (talk) 09:29, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I do not disagree with the original proposal to merge Treatment pond and Stabilization pond. My perception of stabilization pond implies a need to reduce short-term BOD prior to discharge and is virtually identical to the present definition of the treatment pond article. I am more concerned about the proposed merger of Aerated lagoon and Facultative lagoon, which I attribute to their listing (with Settling basin) in the lead of the Stabilization pond article. We may anticipate similar merger proposals unless the lead clearly defines the ambiguous term Treatment pond. Treatment pond is presently defined within the lead as limited to lightly polluted water, which I would interpret to exclude anaerobic lagoons and aerated lagoons specifically adapted to wastes with BOD concentrations capable of completely deoxygenating standing water at ambient conditions. Stabilization pond, on the other hand, is presently defined within the lead to include anaerobic lagoons and aerated lagoons with high BOD wastes, settling basins intended for phase separation without regard to BOD concentration, and facultative lagoons adapted to moderate BOD wastes in frost-free climates under surface area loading conditions which do not exceed ambient atmospheric oxygen transfer. I am open to alternative definitions (with appropriate reference citations) within the merged article lead to avoid inclusion of dissimilar ponds like the constructed wetlands, aerated lagoons, anaerobic lagoons, and settling basins. The differences of ponds deserving separate article coverage may be difficult to explain to a layperson who may confuse design features with observations of poor operating practice. Perhaps we might consider merging the present contents of the treatment pond article into the stabilization pond article, and convert the treatment pond article to a disambiguation page listing the broader range of pond articles describing differing design features intended to improve water quality. Thewellman (talk) 16:45, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Excellent idea, I fully support this! "Perhaps we might consider merging the present contents of the treatment pond article into the stabilization pond article, and convert the treatment pond article to a disambiguation page listing the broader range of pond articles describing differing design features intended to improve water quality." Would you like to have a go at it? EMsmile (talk) 21:49, 11 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I really like this idea as well. Gingineer (talk) 00:40, 12 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I have drafted a proposed merge of the contents of the stabilization pond article and the treatment pond article at User:Thewellman/sandbox2. I suggest contents of the section entitled Constructed wetlands would be more appropriately merged into the constructed wetlands article if the treatment pond article is converted to a redirect. Please feel free to edit the draft as you see fit. Thewellman (talk) 00:32, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry for having missed this earlier! Looks good to me. I've made some quick edits in your sandbox. For me it would be fine to move this into mainspace. What would be the title of the merged article? I would suggest Waste stabilization pond. Are we still doing the disambiguation page for "treatment pond" as mentioned above? EMsmile (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * After you have cut and pasted from my sandbox to the chosen title, if you replace the treatment pond article with a redirect, I will expand the redirect into a disambiguation page. Thewellman (talk) 01:14, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Why do you want me to do it rather than doing it yourself? I can do it probably this week but am not sure if you were waiting for me for a particular reason or just didn't have time Whoever has time first should to it. Is the chosen title "Waste stabilization pond"? It's been a little while since I looked at this... What would happen to the content that is currently under stabilization pond or is that already included in the draft that is in your sandbox? EMsmile (talk) 20:27, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * At the 11 September 2017 suggestion of EMsmile the discussion draft was compiled from information in the Stabilization pond and Treatment pond articles as initially proposed by EMsmile on 22 April 2016. I would prefer to delay the merge until consensus is received from two major editors of the Treatment pond article (KVDP and SoCalYooper); but I have no objection to other editors who might wish to be bolder. I propose to clear my sandbox for other work once the discussion draft is moved into a merged article. If the merged article does not use the Stabilization pond title, I suggest that title be converted to a redirect to the merged title. The redirect might later be converted to a separate article if someone perceived a difference between the merged title and Stabilization pond. Thewellman (talk) 21:30, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

OK sounds good. What new title would you prefer: "Waste stabilization pond" or "Stabilization pond"? Personally, I have the suspicion that "Waste stabilization pond" is the more common term used amongst wastewater people. EMsmile (talk) 21:44, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I trust your judgment as to the more appropriate title. Thewellman (talk) 23:09, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, then I will create the article with title "Waste stabilization pond" shortly. I think that's the correct title, also as per the terminology used by Eawag-Sandec here. EMsmile (talk) 11:37, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

About constructed wetlands
Regarding boundaries/definitions of those mentioned already, for clarity, my definitions of "Constructed Wetland" and "Stabilisation Pond" are (also apologies, I use the term pond/lagoon interchangeably in the below) (Gingineer (talk) 00:40, 12 September 2017 (UTC)):


 * Constructed wetlands have the intended purpose of improving water quality by supporting vegetation, with vegetation in the wetlands arranged to:
 * 1) physically arrest solids and particulate material
 * 2) uptake/consume soluble nutrients in the water
 * 3) supply oxygen to the water, reducing biological oxygen demand of the water


 * Waste stabilisation ponds biologically and physically treat wastewater by having physical dimensions and arrangements that:
 * 1) allow for settling of solids and particulate matter
 * 2) allow for stratification of water layers within the ponds to create anaerobic and aerobic conditions, which support growth of microorganisms to breakdown wastewater components and consume nutrients.(Micro-organisms targetted through design of the physical arrangement of wastewater stabilisation pond processes may include multi-cell organisms, bacteria or algae.)
 * 3) may allow for sunlight / UV light to penetrate through water in the pond, to inactivate or kill pathogens within the wastewater


 * With Waste stabilisation Pond types include:
 * - Anaerobic Ponds
 * - Facultative Ponds
 * - Aerated Facultative Ponds
 * - Maturation Ponds


 * I agree regarding comments that the "treatment pond" article more closely aligns with definitions of a "stabilisation pond", and not a constructed wetlands, as the systems/items described do not include supporting growth of vegetation. Instead processes described in the current "treatment pond" article relate to treatment of water completed by micro-organisms, aligning with a stabilisation pond.)
 * I would consider a "settling pond" to have the primary purpose of physically treating wastewater, through sedimentation of solids, and not also biologically treating wastewater. Hence, I would not include settling ponds in the stabilisation ponds article.
 * Regarding aerated facultative ponds - these are not considered to be oxidation ditches (or activated sludge processes). The physical arrangement of an aerated facultative pond plays a primary role in its correct function (stratification of water layers is still present, the presence of aerators acts to augment the addition of oxygen to the pond not necessarily to mix the ponds); and the concentration of micro-organisms targetted/allowable in an aerated facultative pond is much lower. Oxidation ditches and/or extended aeration ponds (aka lagoons) are considered activated sludge types of processes. They have a higher concentration of micro-organisms, which are suspended within the water and are (relatively) continuously mixed. Also, in activated sludge type processes the presence of algae is not generally targetted (nor desired). I note though that some "aerated lagoons" do operate as activated sludge processes, are continuously mixed and have higher concentrations of micro-organisms. So I agree that disambiguation regarding these aerated lagoons and aerated facultative ponds is required - and this could be included in the aerated lagoons article, and mentioned in the proposed treatment pond disambiguation article.
 * I can add in references for the above if any of it is used for articles. Generally these have been (Gingineer(talk) 00:40, 12 September 2017 (UTC)):
 * https://www.iwapublishing.com/books/9781843391630/waste-stabilisation-ponds
 * http://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/wastewater-engineering-treatment-resource-recovery-metcalf-eddy-inc-tchobanoglous/M0073401188.html
 * https://www.powerwater.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/43946/wsp_design_manual.pdf )

Sounds good. Now who's got time to make these changes happen? :-) EMsmile (talk) 15:59, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

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Merger completed - new article set up
As per the discussion above, I have created a new article called waste stabilization pond from the draft that was in the sandbox of User:Thewellman. What are now the next steps? And has all the relevant content from treatment pond been included in the new article - e.g. what about the section on sizing? Once everything is included and merged then stabilisation pond needs to be redirected to waste stabilization pond.EMsmile (talk) 13:33, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, so I have placed a redirect from stabilization pond to waste stabilization pond. This page here now needs to be converted into a disambiguation page, right? As stated above "convert the treatment pond article to a disambiguation page listing the broader range of pond articles describing differing design features intended to improve water quality." Can you do so, User:Thewellman?  EMsmile (talk) 08:14, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I suggest the first step would be to replace this article with a redirect, indicating the merged article contains the essential elements of this article. I would prefer to delay that replacement until consensus is received from two major editors KVDP and SoCalYooper that the merged article meets their satisfaction. Once the article is replaced by a redirect following this procedure, I am prepared to replace that redirect with a disambiguation page. Thewellman (talk) 03:26, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I think anyone watching this article has had ample opportunity to respond by now and you have even pinged the two major editors twice. If they don't react then it means they are either fine with it or don't care. This editor: SoCalYooper was by the way a student editor and hasn't been back since 2016. So I will now place the redirect and try to put the history merge in motion. EMsmile (talk) 09:33, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I have replaced the treatment pond redirect with a disambiguation page. Thewellman (talk) 17:48, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Review and new references in January 2018
I've been in touch with an expert on waste stabilization ponds from Brazil. He's sent me a marked up Word document of this Wikipedia article. I plan to add his changes slowly into this article over the coming week or two. I think they will be good improvements but if anyone has any concerns, please put them here, now or later as I go along. EMsmile (talk) 00:33, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, User:PlanetCare for adding those edits of Marcos to the Wikipedia article, much appreciated! I will now work on the new references. EMsmile (talk) 00:18, 19 January 2018 (UTC)