An analysis of wastewater temperature variations in six remote monitored onsite systems

As technology innovations occur, the complexity of the processes involved increases, resulting in a greater need for automated monitoring and control systems that have become a key component in process management. In order to effectively and efficiently manage an onsite wastewater treatment system, remote monitoring using telemetry is becoming a more feasible option. Telemetry supplies continuous data which need to be well organized and maintained for later usage. The primary objective of this US EPA funded project was to test and evaluate the applicability of the need for this "centralized paradigm" in the context of managing onsite systems distributed and located in different geographical locations. A number of probes and sensors were installed to study wastewater characteristics at various points within the system. In addition, efforts were directed to study the performance of the sensors and potential causes of failure, as well as the maintenance requirements during routine operation. The overall objective of this project was to assess and evaluate the operational characteristics and performance of onsite systems on a real-time basis. This report presents the architecture of the remote monitoring systems and the software application (Water Data Analysis(c)) developed to process and analyze data from the monitored systems. Wastewater temperature data from six onsite systems were compiled and used for analysis. The temperature of wastewater is usually higher than that of the main water supply because of the addition of warm water used in the facility. The analysis of wastewater temperature is of high importance because most wastewater treatment systems use biological and chemical processes that are temperature-dependent. Initial findings in this study show that the wastewater temperature at all of the six onsite systems remained within the acceptable range prescribed in the wastewater treatment industry.