Waste Lagoon Rehabilitation A New Look At An Old Problem

By Jim Dartez, RELIANT Water Technologies

Throughout the last half-century the municipal and industrial wastewater treatment industry has depended heavily upon the use of waste lagoons in order to provide relatively clean water that could be returned to the environment. These are often called stabilization lagoons. Municipally, these types of waste “treatment” systems were used primarily for small, rural communities and many are capable of providing secondary treatment. Around the year 2000 there were an estimated 10,000 of these lagoons in use in the United States. If concentrated animal feed operation (CAFO) lagoons are considered, close to another 20,000 of these “water treatment ponds” are active today in this country. These numbers do not include industrial waste lagoons and recreational ponds.