Question

Identify at least two ways in which heavy rain can affect the efficiency of wastewater treatment facilities.

Answer 1

Answer:

Rain water that mixes with sewage has two effects on treatment plant performance. The first issue is that it thins out the concentration of sewage. This may sound like a good thing but it's not. Wastewater treatment is a biological process and like everything that involves living things it requires a regular food supply to survive. If you thin out the food supply you can expect the biology to perform poorly. Even so, this generally doesn't cause significant problems. Instead it just makes normal performance a little worse then returns to normal once the flow goes back down.