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The sedimentation basin at the Victoria Surface Water Treatment Plant is seen on Wednesday.

The sedimentation basin is seen at the Victoria Surface Water Treatment Plant on Wednesday afternoon.

The Victoria Surface Water Treatment Plant hosts a pump station that sends treated water to water towers located in the city of Victoria.

The sedimentation basin at the Victoria Surface Water Treatment Plant is seen on Wednesday.

The sedimentation basin is seen at the Victoria Surface Water Treatment Plant on Wednesday afternoon.

The Victoria Surface Water Treatment Plant hosts a pump station that sends treated water to water towers located in the city of Victoria.

Victoria’s sprawling surface water treatment plant provides the water that emerges through local taps even as this summer’s drought lingers on.

The city currently pumps water from the Guadalupe River into eight large storage pools know as off-channel reservoirs. The water goes through a raw pump station before ending up at the surface water treatment plant. Water from the Guadalupe River is siphoned into the reservoirs and treated at the plant before arriving at residents’ taps.

If the city moves to Stage III of its Drought Contingency Plan, it would ease its dependence on the Guadalupe by activating several groundwater wells stationed in Victoria.

To produce water suitable for use in homes and businesses, the plant runs five processes — coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfection. Water is mixed with treatment chemicals to be cleansed, filtered and disinfected.

In one of six filters, water is rapidly mixed with several electrically-charged chemicals. The chemicals sent through the mixing stage clump together to form an attachment of particles known as flocs.

Flocculation is the second necessary step in water treatment. The flocs cluster together to form even larger particles, which means they will become heavier and drop to the bottom as if they were a ship anchor, Public Works Director Ken Gill said.

Next is the sedimentation phase, in which the floc particles float into a long tank known as a sedimentation basin. As it moves farther into the basin, the flocs settle to the bottom.

After progressing through the sedimentation basin, Victoria’s water source is still not quite ready for public use. Contaminants such as germs like giardia and cryptosporidium need to be removed by a filtration device made out of sand and coal.

“The (treatment plant) filter works like a Brita Filter you might have at home,” Gill said. “It removes a lot of bad odors.”

Filtration further improves the clearness of water, which is known scientifically as turbidity. The plant’s staff can test for turbidity and specific chemicals by taking water samples from the tap inside an on-site laboratory.

Every morning, plant operators are required to clean the filters because dust particles and insects tend to rest on the surface. Small nets are stored nearby so a plant worker can pull out the tiny creatures who find themselves stuck in the filter pool.

To be fully clean, water has to be disinfected. The Victoria plant’s main disinfectant, chloramine, is a combination of chlorine and ammonia gas. Plant workers routinely measure the amount of disinfectant in a water sample. Water completely free of harmful pathogens may seem clean, but can be deemed unhealthy if too much disinfectant is in the final product.

Before the treated water supply flows into pipelines throughout Victoria, it must stream through a pump station before going into one of the city’s five water towers. Gravity pulls the water from the towers into the city’s pipelines.

Around 9,000 gallons of water streams through the treatment plant every minute. The plant processes approximately 13-million gallons of water each day.

Any changes to the amount of water the city can pump is determined by water permits set by the Watermasters of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

“You can’t just pump water out of the river without permits,” Gill said. “When the river drops to low flows, we have to use new permits, which limit the amount of water we can pump.”

“For now, we are hoping for more rain to replenish the river upstream, Gill said.

Leo Bertucci is a Report for America corps member who covers energy and environment for the Victoria Advocate.

While Victoria residents participate in mandated water conservation during this summer's drought, local wildlife and agriculture try to get by as well.

Before moving to the Crossroads, Leo Bertucci studied journalism and political science at Western Kentucky University.

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