Recently, we had a chance to check out Citizens Energy Group’s White River Water Treatment Plant! Not many people get a chance to check out the behind the scenes action at this plant – so we’d love to share a little of what we learned.
This plant uses both surface water (from a canal from the White River) and groundwater (from the Riverside Wellfield) to produce drinking water for the citizens of Indianapolis. This picture shows groundwater from two sets of wells in the Riverside Wellfield being added to the surface water coming from the White River. Other water treatment plants around Indianapolis use a similar combination of groundwater and surface water, but some also use just surface water and some just groundwater.
This water treatment plant produces around 75 million gallons of water per day! About 13 million gallons of that total comes from groundwater.
Groundwater is used at this water treatment plant to change the temperature of the water treated (because groundwater is underground, it’s warmer than surface water in the winter and cooler than surface water in the summer), assist with parts of the treatment process, increase the overall water supply, and help with taste and odor issues that sometimes occur with surface water.
We hope you enjoyed getting the insider perspective on how the water that comes out of your tap is made! If you are interested in more details specific to you, please check out the Consumer Confidence Reports news post.
