ENVIRONMRNTAL ENGINEERING SERVICES
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
Environmental engineering is a sub-discipline o civil engineering and chemical engineering and is focused mainly on sanitary engineering. Environmental engineering include broad scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematics to create solutions that will protect and improve the health of living organisms and improve the quality of the environment.
OBJECTIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
- Application of scientific and engineering principles to improve and maintain the environment to protect human health, protect natural ecosystems, and improve the quality of human life.
- Develop solutions for water and waste eater management, air pollution control, recycling, and waste disposal technics.
- Design safe drinking water treatment plants, domestic and industrial wastewater treatment plants.
- Improve sanitation in urban, rural, and recreational areas.
- Evaluate hazardous waste generated by domestic and industrial activity and advise the owners on options for containment and safe disposal to prevent mishaps and to meet regulations.
Water Treatment
Water treatment is a process to improves the quality of water to make it appropriate for a specific end-use. The water that enters the treatment plant is either surface or ground water . Surface water from lakes, rivers, and streams contain sediment, sand, clay, silt, germs, chemicals, and toxins than ground water. Therefore, surface water typically requires more treatment than ground water. Water treatment removes contaminants and undesirable components, or reduces their concentration so that the water becomes fit for its desired end-use.
Drinking Water Systems
Public drinking water systems use different water treatment methods to provide safe drinking water for their communities. Public water systems often use a series of water treatment steps that include:
- Coagulation
- Flocculation
- Sedimentation
- Filtration
- Disinfection.
Municipal Wastewater Treatment
Wastewater treatment is a process which removes and eliminates contaminants from wastewater and converts into an effluent that can be returned to the water cycleand it creates an acceptable impact on the environment. There are several kinds of wastewater which are treated at the appropriate type of wastewater treatment plant. For domestic wastewater which is also called municipal wastewater or sewage and the treatment plant is called a Sewage Treatment.
Industrial Wastewater Treatment
Wastewater discharges from industrial and commercial sources contain pollutants at levels that could affect the quality of receiving water bodies like rivers and lakes or interfere with publicly owned treatment works. The NPDES permitting program established wastewater effluent discharge limits and conditions for industrial and commercial sources with specific limitations based on the type of facility generating the discharge. The national pretreatment program is to control non-domestic discharges from industrial and commercial sources into municipal sewer systems.
Air Pollution
Air is polluted when it contains certain substances in concentrations high enough and for durations long enough to cause harm or undesirable effects. These include adverse effects on human health, property, and atmospheric visibility. Only the pollution caused by human activities, such as industry and transportation, must be controlled. The best way to protect air quality is to reduce the emission of pollutants by changing to cleaner fuels and processes.
Air Pollution Control
Pollutants not eliminated in this way must can be trapped by appropriate air-cleaning devices as they are generated and before they can escape into the atmosphere. Common types of equipment for collecting fine particulates include cyclones, scrubbers, electrostatic precipitators, and baghouse filters. Once collected, particulates adhere to each other, forming agglomerates that can readily be removed from the equipment and disposed of in a landfill.
Environmental Impact Statement (EIA)
Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a proposed construction project. The purpose of the assessment is to ensure that decision makers consider the environmental impacts when deciding whether to proceed or not with a construction project. EIAs are unique in that they do not require adherence to a predetermined environmental outcome, but rather they require decision-makers to account for environmental values in their decisions and to justify those decisions in light of detailed environmental studies and public comments on the potential environmental impacts. .