I used to work with an American branch of this company and help them complete their government paperwork. In the past three years I cannot tell you a single good thing about the HR or the teams I had to work with. Angry and rude people who view their workforce as expendable items who are no more valuable than the dirt on the ground and treat all of their business partners the same way. I will admit it was just the one HR lady but she's mean enough for the entire company and there is no excuse to treat people the way she does. Siemens are an incredible company but one bad Apple will ruin the bunch.
You know you've found a great channel when the video is 9:39 seconds long. So close to getting that 10 minute ad boost, yet they still added no fluff to reach it. Props to City Beautiful, great video.
That was one of the sneakiest and most subtle sponsor message placements I've ever seen on UA-cam, while being effective. Wendover should learn from you! And also, great video!
this man is at the peak of sponsorships, imagine being sponsored by the company that makes basically all of the behind the scenes electrical equipment in your house, and most others'.
C:S uses separate sewers, you can see 2 separate pipes parallel to each other when you drag-build them. Also the water intake and sewage dumping in C:S is flawed. Everything gets treated at both ends and you don't just increase water supply by adding more intake pipes; you need to build new, or enlarge, existing water treatment plants IRL.
I often think about waste water treatment when I think about entropy and thermodynamics. It takes energy to create order and sewerage is the ultimate mess of mixed up, err, stuff. How they turn all that back into clean water and not dump the toxic stuff profitably is something I'm glad to see appreciated.
As a waste water and stormwater Engineer and for a municipality HAIR is the worst for the treatment facility. As well stormwater infiltration accounts for a % of the water in the sewage system as well so even in separate systems stormwater is calculated for sizing sewage. For stormwater, capturing the first inch of a rain is the standard for water quality management. This captures the vast majority of contaminates that would flow into the system before discharging into a creek, river, or ocean. Bioswales, sand filters, wet and dry ponds are the common devices for water quality/quantity.
Lol, when i was a teenager, i cut off all my hair and, for some reason, stuffed it all down the sink and garbage disposal. Professionals had to come unclog the pipes underground. My parents were sooo upset.
Early urban wastewater systems are fascinating to me because they could be make or break for cities. E coli and cholera are still feared to this day in a world of modern medicine; imagine how bad they were in days where people didn't understand hygiene from a scientific perspective. That's why I love reading about things like the Indus River valley civilization. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_of_the_Indus_Valley_Civilisation
People back then were more immune to diseases than our sterile modern way of life! Even I have noticed in my 65 plus years that allergies are way up than what I remembered as a kid!
I like the Biosystems! They are not only good for improving the quality of the environmental water, but also can function as artificial swamps, holding back stormwater, irrigating urban vegetation, levelling out the stormwater wave, that reaches treatment plants, helping to control cities microclimate by cooling down in summers due to evapotranspiraion... so many possibilities! It does not need to be a water sensitive city, but sponge city is a very promising start!
A lot of the new suburban developments around my area (MN/WI, USA) include drainage ponds with green space around them. They double as infrastructure and eye-catching landscaping (usually as a centerpiece in a ring of apartment blocks), as well as watering holes for geese and other critters.
Greetings from Glen Ellyn west of you where we have both wastewater AND storm water treatment plants! And so cool this past May the Glenbard Wastewater Treatment Plant had an open house day with guided tours that discussed many of the same issues of the hazards to their systems.
5:45 Berlin actually has the inverse problem, where the sewer system as it exists today was built in the 1900s when Berlin experienced massive rapid growth that was so immense that the planners built the sewers to accomodate for 10 million people (Berlins population never exceeded the 4.5 Million living there in the 1930s). So it has to regularly flood the entire system to get rid of waste that isn't washed away because there is just not enough wastewater to take care of it.
I myself have programmed the PLCs (Siemens S7-1500) on a equipment update project, on handful of pumping stations in Copenhagen. I also have done a lot of other projects in the wastewater space. Therefore I find this video so interesting, god video.
As a side note about bio swells, there's another benefit to them. In addition to lowering the strain on the sewage system, as water evaporates from the plants as they photosynthesize, they effectively allow the city to "sweat" and actually can help lower the temperature in cities. And if your trees are large enough, as they are in some cities, they can provide some shade too. Cooler cities are more livable, but also can help decrease energy consumption related to air conditioning.
Many cities (Augusta, GA being one) have added an extra final stage to the end of their sewage treatment that is very much like a bioswale on a HUGE scale. The effluent that would otherwise go to a river after treatment instead goes to what amounts to a man-made swamp. The first step takes the water through an open area that gets the chlorine time to leave the water into the atmosphere. This is also the step when most of the remaining particulates drop out of suspension. After that, the water makes its way through the "swamp" to feed the plants and further clean it up. Except for the fish and turtle poop, the water at the end is clean enough to drink.
To be fair, they're a giant in engineering, Siemens PLM and Dassault Systemes basically have the entire autos industry (cars, trucks, planes, military equipment, etc) by the balls bc Siemens NX/Teamcenter and Dassault Systemes CATIA/ENOVIA.
@@gageyeager6693 oh yeah, I'm aware how much stuff Siemens makes/used to make. All manner of tech stuff from personal devices (phones especially) up through massive mainframes in a partnership with Fujitsu (they never forgot their old allies, eh?) They also make medical equipment from what I remember, electrical infrastructure, but I think their biggest "oh they have industry by the balls" one is their massive industry automation systems. That includes their IP stuff like Siemens NX, Teamcenter, and Simcenter, as well as the hardware, specifically their very popular PLC systems (SIMATIC).
Another informative video! Once again, I commend you on your ability to pack a wide variety of information on complex topics into brief and enjoyable videos. Good communication, and the ability to make learning enjoyable is such a huge part of creating good educational content, and you nail it in video after video.
If you want to make a video on the dutch sewage treatment, I'd be more than happy to help. Here the wastewater is actually pumped into the dunes (in certain areas) and the water management boards play a very big role. Their is also a shifting focus in letting as much water as possible into the ground to help stop the decreasing ground water level.
To be honest, it's only a Rotterdam/The Hague solution. We've plenty of conventional sewage treatment systems around the country, sometimes even in the dunes like at e.g. Burgh-Haamstede.
@@hendrikdependrik1891 I believe they also do it in the Veluwe as well. But indeed, it is limited in locations. But how it is used as a natural filter, groundwater replenishment, and saltwater infiltration barrier is pretty cool.
For utility workers in the US, there is a standard color scheme used when marking the location of utilities. Sewers are green, electrical is red, comms are orange, water is blue, petroleum is yellow, steam is purple, and pink for everything else. I'd like to see this convention used in future videos, that way if you see these markings in your neighborhood, you know what they mean!
Another important note on storm water treatment, there are modules like Stormceptor and Vortech that are passively designed to skim off oil and settle debris before the water enters the sewer
This was a really interesting video, especially about swales, a word I’d never used before. I am familiar with something called sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) and swales seem to be an extension of that principle. Enjoying this channel a lot.
To me, the obvious solution seems to be a separate system where both streams go to the water treatment plants. However in the event of overflow, only the stormwater stream (the cleaner of the two) gets diverted to the nearby rivers/lakes/oceans as needed. I'm sure someone has thought of this already and presumably there is some reason this is not feasible?
I really enjoy these videos. We had some intense rain here in Phoenix last night, and today I caught myself wondering a few times around my campus why they seemingly have random basins that seem to just collect water instead of just draining it. I was thinking that it can't just simply be for the sake of the plants, because thats too much work to make sense... Now i know its probably so the system doesn't get overwhelmed
I recently saw that Toronto has started projects to fix our waste water overflow problems. Good timing with this video to explain the situation. They will be building a series of massive wells to store the excess wastewater along the Don Valley river which is where much of the city water collects during storms on the way towards lake Ontario.
Great video! Could you do a follow-up on the cities that are starting to use RO to clean waste water and send it back to the taps? I've been curious about that...
@@CityBeautiful/videos/videos Maybe you could add a little aside section to that one about sink/toilet combos or ways that end users can also employ the "big infra" solutions? We can all do out part to contribute to the greater issue.
From time to time youtube show me some beuatiful channels like yours. I'm so glad for it. Keep the excelent job you are doing educating and informing 👏👏👏🤩💙
I visited a water treatment plant once andI will forever and ever remember the smell. The salty, unique smell that is beyond. Was a pretty cool trip though because very insightful.
Montreal has had a CSO with a pair of large collectors for a long while. There are still massive rejects in en environment despite those collectors. At the time it was built, a waste treatment facility was also constructed at the end of the island. It's one of the largest on the planet and that's part of the problem. The solid gets removed, it gets a chemical treatment to remove further particules suspended in the water, but beyond that, it's just released back to the St-Laurence. The effluents form a distinct band of water which can be detected and even seen several more then a hundred kilometres downstream. Trying to find an engineering solution that is practical for providing further treatment of so much water is something which has been studied pretty much from the opening of that waste water facility.
I don't know about the situation globally but here in Germany it was a big deal a couple years back that a lot of cities had to partly dismantle and scale down their sewers because they hadn't factored in that saving water would ever become a thing. Therefore they were left with oversized sewer systems that weren't properly flushed by the relatively small amount of water running through it anymore.
@@CityBeautiful Well, they don't need to be _full_ necessarily but the current needs to be strong enough to carry solids with it. Especially in residential areas, this became an issue in many communities. One interesting solution I've seen was a smaller channel in the center of the oversized pipe, so the maximum capacity wasn't affected for draining storm water but the effective diameter for normal operation was reduced.
The pipes aren't actually oversized, they just need flushing because the slope is not sufficient. Sewer flushing requires water so it's not very efficient.
Surprised you didn't mention Cleveland, Ohio because we have a huge problem here with a combined sewer. Whenever it rains raw sewage is drained into Lake Eerie causing bacterial blooms that make the water toxic.
I just started my university program last week in Environmental Engineering and its interesting hearing th/e things I just heard a couple days ago in a video. One other thing I would like to add that I just learned about is energy neutral wastewater treatment where the wastewater is used to feed bacteria to create methane which is then burned to power the treatment plant. Thought that was another super cool, green way of doing wastewater treatment.
While it's true that you shouldn't pour fat down the drain, that's not what causes fatbergs. That information is wrong, because it's cheaper for cities to pretend to fix problems than to actually fix them.
The worst is when a developing country gets one of these systems gifted to them but then doesn't know how to use them. My city has one of them but there is still a MASSIVE open sewer.
omething often overlooked is the large amount of pumping stations required to get the wastewater to the treatment plant. Something to think about if the power goes out
@Craig F. Thompson I was the manufacturer's rep for the pumps for years. The "wet well" type sewage lift pumping stations are everywhere. I've sold pumps all over the US east of the Mississippi and have yet to see a community without them. Nowadays most have backup generators but sometimes they fail or run out of fuel. We had a pump station go down in South Jersey one time and had 10 vacuum trucks (honey wagons) sucking the sewage well out and hauling it to the treatment plant
really interesting. A point i would have liked to hear about is that modern water safing toilets etc. bring other problems in the sewer system. Sometimes there isnt enough water in the system to properly clean and run the sewer lines since when the sewers were planned the pipes were for a lot bigger amount of sewage.
Most modern wastewater treatment plants are overbuilt enough that they don't have to discharge raw sewage during high rainfall. They can either handle the high flows and treat it, or they can store the excess on site and treat it over time.
Craig F. Thompson I didn't say only rich countries have better transit than US what i meant was all of the wealthy nations do. Some not very rich countries can still have better transit than the US.
@@thischannel4326/videos/videos And most of those countries are a fraction of the size. A more direct comparison would be to California or the NE Corridor (NYC to DC). It's a hell of a lot easier to build out mass transit in a country the size of Ohio than in one the size of the US or Canada. That being said, India and China seem to be doing a pretty good job.
A note on stormwater by a civil engineer: the primary pollutant that we (engineers) are most concerned about is actually dirt. In a natural environment, very little dirt makes it into waterways, because the ground cover catches it instead. Dirt from stormwater makes the water cloudy, which increases the waters temperature and causes serious harm to fish, blinding them, making it harder to breathe, and in the some cases killing them. We are concerned about other pollutants as well, but those pollutants (oil, phosphorus, nitrates) often bind to the dirt in the water, so by preventing dirt from entering waterways, you often prevent other harmful pollutants as well.
Why is everyone writing "Thanks Semens" in the comments? Am I missing a meme or is this just a juvenile joke by people who don't realize that "semen" has no plural form?
Great vid! Could you do a video on green rooftops? The debate about them keeps coming up locally and I’m unsure if solar panels or a green rooftop is better for the environment.
A combination of both would be better. Though I guess with green rooftops people are afraid that the roots of plants will penetrate into houses and the weight of plants can collapse ceilings.
Snovaltica well the cost for one. You have to strengthen the structure of the building and roof depending on the scale of the greened roofs. And then there are some conflicts for space, as it’s cheap to put ventilation and AC on a rooftop for with there then might not be enough space. And then also cost for upkeep one might also have to consider.
Better yet do a video about India, a country with one of the most populated, longest and oldest river systems and their sewer system, or lack there of. But I think this guy's is trained and most experienced in modern urban planning in America, so a video outside of USA will be unlikely
@@cartermize6651 im pretty sure they have a surplus of water and share the water with other countries in area. But its basically recycled piss and whiz. Wonder if the palestinians will object from drinking it if they knew the origin
Yeah my city has been busy for 10 years upgrading and separating our waste water system piecemeal the wetlands near my house have been zoned and rezoned a few times alternately as a storm water biothing and as housing. Also I have noticed that in new areas the road drain gutters all flow into gardens now.
City Beautiful They’re gorgeous books. I learned about him through a very gripping PBS adaptation of “Building Big” my library offered on VHS. After checking out the “Tunnels” section, I recommend the parts on bridges and domes.
Clean drinking /tap water would also be an interesting topic. Depending on where you live it can be a scarce or very seasonal resource. I find it very interesting how cities, who don't have it in abundance deal with it. For example, Singapore tries to recycle more and more of its waste water to drinking quality standard to become less dependent on water from neighboring Malaysia. Hong Kong has a separate pipe system for toilet water for which it uses salt water, so less potable water is wasted. California's Central Valley has a potable water crisis, because the agriculture industry there uses a large amount of potable water for irrigation and the communities in the area have to deal with ground water - which they use for potable water - that is polluted by the discharge of intensive farming.
Time to go in depth! For example, how combined sewers are just an evolution of open sewers i.e. people just dump into whichever flowing water is closest. Combined sewers intercept these open sewers from entering the river and divert them to a treatment plant. But since they also carry stormwater overflows are inevitable and provided for. Also hidden in this video is how we approach dealing with stormwater. The previous model emphasises conveyance i.e. we build infrastructures to convey stormwater away as quickly as possible. This is how LA got their large stormwater drainage channels. Nowadays we have moved to retention i.e. we hold onto the stormwater as much as possible, releasing them in a controlled manner, and allowing for the ground to absorb back some of this water. Those rain gardens, and also things like detention ponds, vertical gardens and rainwater harvesting, are examples of this new approach.
Maybe I missed it, but a simple obvious improvement on separated sewers is to let the first runoff of the storm sewer go into the treatment plant, and only after the initial rinse spill to the river.
This is not a competition that I am proud my area has won, but recently we had a 300 tonne fatberg. It was the result of some illegal dumping by local restaurants. When I trained to be a teacher in the 1970s, we visited a water treatment site. It was one of the most fascinating trips I've ever been on, and, to our surprise, it did not smell unpleasant. No one took up the offer of a glass of freshly cleaned water at the end, so our guide drank it...
Thank you for adding Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles footage for the people like me who have nothing useful to add to the conversation but are happy to be included nonetheless
River Des Peres in Saint Louis used to be an open common sewer and when it rains too much or flooding occurs it becomes a common sewer once again. It can be a big problem for obvious reasons
They have some interesting informational plaques and signs around areas of Calgary which describe various bits of storm water infrastructure that is cleverly disguised as natural areas. Or is actual natural areas. Or was constructed to "go natural" (like the "storm water dry pond" near my house). It's amazing what you can learn by going for a "stroll" and actually reading those informational signs.
Combined sewers aren't common in all countries mate, Denmark haven't used them since the 70's, rainwater is always seperate since then. The issue is pre-70's sewers, because are upgrade gradually, turns out, it was smart to ban combined sewers, we get a lot more rain these days.
Enriching. Though it is a solid and good short video about the topic, I could watch/hear hours of lectures about how all these systems work, and wonder about how to implement them in already huge cities with poor sewer systems or even in small projects of ecological villages out in the rural areas.
My campus has multiple experimental green infrastructure projects that have been set up over the last 5 years or so, I participated in the design of the very first of these, but other classmates dedicated themselves more to it and have made later designs and construction of these.
Any thoughts on permeable roads as a way to increase the permeable surface area of a city even further than bioswales? I know Salem, Oregon, started using them in some new developments but I haven't really heard of them much since. Same with green roofs. If you think about it, all the concert and asphalt in a city basically just makes it into one big sewer pipe.
Chengyan Boon permeable pavement(roads) is being used but sparingly. It has its own pros and cons to consider. Currently it is in storm water management firm’s toolbox but only on occasion because of how much cheaper the other methods are.
@@ericolens3 should be legal everywhere. It's compulsory to have rain water tanks on new home builds where I live in Australia. The idea is any water than falls on your roof ends up in storm water, so you might as well drain it to your tank so you can use it for toilets, gardens, etc. Everyone still have regular water connections for everything else.
Survey complete! Please make a video about garbage collection, including how cities become completely chaotic when garbage collection goes on strike. My sister lives in Toronto and the 2009 garbage strike was a complete gong-show. You would be surprise how fragile our cities are, until there is a garbage strike.
Where I live in Athens the water manr at the top of the hill keeps bursting and creating a stream down the road. This has been happening for the entire 6 years I have lived here.
I live in a city on a bay so I am very conscious of water and sewer problems. I suppose people at a distance from lakes and the ocean are not as aware of what happens to sewer water. Anyway, at about four minutes in he mentions the split system vs the single system as if they were about the same. The fact is, the combined runoff sewer/wastewater sewer is much worse for the environment. I was not aware any big cities were still using it.
Bear with me, this is somewhat lengthy but is all about an innovative use of urban wastewater... When it comes to Norther California, most people think about vineyards, wineries, the ocean and their favorite spas. As it turns out, there's quite a lot of geothermal activity in NorCal, which is why there are so many hot springs. What's not as well know is that it's also the home of the world's largest geothermal steam fields, which has the capacity to generate 1,500 Megawatts of power - in the same range as a nuclear power plant! The Geysers steam field was first tapped in 1921 and large-scale operation started in the 1960's. Power started decreasing in the 1980's due to a lowered water table from steam extraction but an innovative solution was found. Using the "two birds, one stone" approach, the nearby city of Santa Rosa built a 40 mile long pipeline to pump 12 million gallons _per_day_ up into the hills and injected into the ground, recharging the steam field. It's calculated that the injected water produces enough steam to generate an extra 100 MW, enough to provide electricity for an additional 100,000 homes. srcity.org/1061/Recycled-Water
Wouldn't these bio-swells(?) be able to do all the cleaning then and there if big enough, without need for pipes or cleaners? Mini-ecosystem? How many m² of grassland, insects, and good soil is needed to clear out 1 person's average...output for the year 💩🚽?
When there is trash near manholes I would pick it up and place it in the trash. It makes me feel good to prevent trash going down manholes that cannot be retrieved if it did go down.
Despite all the jokes, Siemens is actually a huge sponsor to have on a UA-cam video. Congratulations, it’s very well deserved!
And a german one of course 💪
@@jonas1630 yikes nationalism
@@imgayasheck595 nope, just some patriotism....
I used to work with an American branch of this company and help them complete their government paperwork. In the past three years I cannot tell you a single good thing about the HR or the teams I had to work with. Angry and rude people who view their workforce as expendable items who are no more valuable than the dirt on the ground and treat all of their business partners the same way. I will admit it was just the one HR lady but she's mean enough for the entire company and there is no excuse to treat people the way she does. Siemens are an incredible company but one bad Apple will ruin the bunch.
@@jonas1630 Sure thing Hitler.
"Thanks, Siemens!"
This gives me life...
radudeATL hehehehe, seamen
I laughed a little too hard at that sponsor support and how he said it LOLLL
Don't forget to clean your Siemens pumps regularly
How would you pronounce it?
Didnt even watch the video
If you told me ten years ago I'd be using UA-cam to watch something called 'An Intro to Urban Wastewater Systems', I wouldn't have believed you.
Yu Wish lamo
That, is why you fail.
I think this every time I have conversations with my friends about insurance. What have I become?
If you told me 10 years ago that I’d be alive to use UA-cam to watch this video, I wouldn’t have believed you.
Imagine being in an engineering field where this info would be relevant.
That's me.
You know you've found a great channel when the video is 9:39 seconds long. So close to getting that 10 minute ad boost, yet they still added no fluff to reach it. Props to City Beautiful, great video.
I'd honestly prefer if he went for 10:00 here, he deserves the extra money
As an Environmental Engineer, this is what I watch to entertain myself while I'm eating! 😍
me too 😊
Is this a flex?
same
same, at least the Engineer-part, and eating to these kind of videos x)
Aferin
I'm glad you got to this topic since it usually gets overlooked in popular urbanism.
semen
In Belgium we bring grease and used oils to the city/town's recycle collection points.
The same as in Germany
Same in Italy. In my town we have a small biomass power plant that burn the collected cooking oil and greese
I mean, what do people even think? The sink is for wasteWATER not every liquid that you just have lying around.
Isn't it compostable?
if you clean/purify your cooking fats you can make your soap/explosives
That was one of the sneakiest and most subtle sponsor message placements I've ever seen on UA-cam, while being effective. Wendover should learn from you! And also, great video!
Ya know squarespace?
DO U KNOW SKILLSHARE
Rest assured that NatureBox wants nothing to do with this topic.
Wendover taught me well.
The question is how many Toyota Corollas does a Siemens pump cost?
this man is at the peak of sponsorships, imagine being sponsored by the company that makes basically all of the behind the scenes electrical equipment in your house, and most others'.
Cities Skylines: just drag and place water pipes and treatment facility. Done
C:S uses separate sewers, you can see 2 separate pipes parallel to each other when you drag-build them.
Also the water intake and sewage dumping in C:S is flawed. Everything gets treated at both ends and you don't just increase water supply by adding more intake pipes; you need to build new, or enlarge, existing water treatment plants IRL.
@@mfaizsyahmi no it's two separate, one for clean water, one for sewage
@@xhonkeri4066 where's the storm water lines where the sewage line flows along?
Lol
C:S Modders: Pipe? What pipe?
I often think about waste water treatment when I think about entropy and thermodynamics. It takes energy to create order and sewerage is the ultimate mess of mixed up, err, stuff. How they turn all that back into clean water and not dump the toxic stuff profitably is something I'm glad to see appreciated.
As a waste water and stormwater Engineer and for a municipality HAIR is the worst for the treatment facility. As well stormwater infiltration accounts for a % of the water in the sewage system as well so even in separate systems stormwater is calculated for sizing sewage. For stormwater, capturing the first inch of a rain is the standard for water quality management. This captures the vast majority of contaminates that would flow into the system before discharging into a creek, river, or ocean. Bioswales, sand filters, wet and dry ponds are the common devices for water quality/quantity.
Lol, when i was a teenager, i cut off all my hair and, for some reason, stuffed it all down the sink and garbage disposal. Professionals had to come unclog the pipes underground. My parents were sooo upset.
I thought fat and oil was enemy number one...hahaha. fatbergs and such
Early urban wastewater systems are fascinating to me because they could be make or break for cities. E coli and cholera are still feared to this day in a world of modern medicine; imagine how bad they were in days where people didn't understand hygiene from a scientific perspective. That's why I love reading about things like the Indus River valley civilization. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_of_the_Indus_Valley_Civilisation
Thanks for this!
People back then were more immune to diseases than our sterile modern way of life! Even I have noticed in my 65 plus years that allergies are way up than what I remembered as a kid!
I like the Biosystems! They are not only good for improving the quality of the environmental water, but also can function as artificial swamps, holding back stormwater, irrigating urban vegetation, levelling out the stormwater wave, that reaches treatment plants, helping to control cities microclimate by cooling down in summers due to evapotranspiraion... so many possibilities! It does not need to be a water sensitive city, but sponge city is a very promising start!
A lot of the new suburban developments around my area (MN/WI, USA) include drainage ponds with green space around them. They double as infrastructure and eye-catching landscaping (usually as a centerpiece in a ring of apartment blocks), as well as watering holes for geese and other critters.
Greetings from Glen Ellyn west of you where we have both wastewater AND storm water treatment plants! And so cool this past May the Glenbard Wastewater Treatment Plant had an open house day with guided tours that discussed many of the same issues of the hazards to their systems.
5:45 Berlin actually has the inverse problem, where the sewer system as it exists today was built in the 1900s when Berlin experienced massive rapid growth that was so immense that the planners built the sewers to accomodate for 10 million people (Berlins population never exceeded the 4.5 Million living there in the 1930s). So it has to regularly flood the entire system to get rid of waste that isn't washed away because there is just not enough wastewater to take care of it.
I myself have programmed the PLCs (Siemens S7-1500) on a equipment update project, on handful of pumping stations in Copenhagen. I also have done a lot of other projects in the wastewater space. Therefore I find this video so interesting, god video.
Fucking dansk navn du har.
Same. I hate theirs though. Rockwell is way better tho imo
Then you most likely have heard about the Klimaspring campaign?
As a side note about bio swells, there's another benefit to them.
In addition to lowering the strain on the sewage system, as water evaporates from the plants as they photosynthesize, they effectively allow the city to "sweat" and actually can help lower the temperature in cities. And if your trees are large enough, as they are in some cities, they can provide some shade too.
Cooler cities are more livable, but also can help decrease energy consumption related to air conditioning.
I love this channel so much. Every single video is well put together, very interesting and it is just plain obvious how much passion goes into this.
Aww man thanks!
Many cities (Augusta, GA being one) have added an extra final stage to the end of their sewage treatment that is very much like a bioswale on a HUGE scale. The effluent that would otherwise go to a river after treatment instead goes to what amounts to a man-made swamp.
The first step takes the water through an open area that gets the chlorine time to leave the water into the atmosphere. This is also the step when most of the remaining particulates drop out of suspension.
After that, the water makes its way through the "swamp" to feed the plants and further clean it up. Except for the fish and turtle poop, the water at the end is clean enough to drink.
"This video is sponsored by Siemens"
Alrighty then...
More intresting than Audiable or Dollar Shave Club.
To be fair, they're a giant in engineering, Siemens PLM and Dassault Systemes basically have the entire autos industry (cars, trucks, planes, military equipment, etc) by the balls bc Siemens NX/Teamcenter and Dassault Systemes CATIA/ENOVIA.
by semens
@@romannasuti25 I used to work on Siemens wind turbines. They have their fingers in everything.
@@gageyeager6693 oh yeah, I'm aware how much stuff Siemens makes/used to make. All manner of tech stuff from personal devices (phones especially) up through massive mainframes in a partnership with Fujitsu (they never forgot their old allies, eh?)
They also make medical equipment from what I remember, electrical infrastructure, but I think their biggest "oh they have industry by the balls" one is their massive industry automation systems. That includes their IP stuff like Siemens NX, Teamcenter, and Simcenter, as well as the hardware, specifically their very popular PLC systems (SIMATIC).
I work in the wastewater industry and thought this was a very impressive overview! Great job!
Excellent video. I'm from Portland Oregon (nice to be mentioned in a UA-cam video for one lol) and the Willamette is A LOT cleaner now.
8:17 "Dad, stop". Well, thanks 'siemens'
Wow! Impressive. Getting Sponsored By Semens
"It ain't Semens, unless it tastes like Semens."
I had a Siemens phone once.
It was shit.
@@Ag3nt0fCha0s Every machine used in infrastructure is made by that company.
@@Ag3nt0fCha0s That's probably why they closed down Siemens Mobile in 2005
Another informative video! Once again, I commend you on your ability to pack a wide variety of information on complex topics into brief and enjoyable videos. Good communication, and the ability to make learning enjoyable is such a huge part of creating good educational content, and you nail it in video after video.
Good timing. In Warsaw City was just watertreetment plant accident, and half city sewage go to river.
Błażej Pęksyk XD przypadek?
You could buy Simens pump from your neighbor to the west.👩🏭 But plz buy not steal 🙏
If you want to make a video on the dutch sewage treatment, I'd be more than happy to help. Here the wastewater is actually pumped into the dunes (in certain areas) and the water management boards play a very big role. Their is also a shifting focus in letting as much water as possible into the ground to help stop the decreasing ground water level.
To be honest, it's only a Rotterdam/The Hague solution. We've plenty of conventional sewage treatment systems around the country, sometimes even in the dunes like at e.g. Burgh-Haamstede.
@@hendrikdependrik1891 I believe they also do it in the Veluwe as well. But indeed, it is limited in locations. But how it is used as a natural filter, groundwater replenishment, and saltwater infiltration barrier is pretty cool.
I'm sure the host would love the video footage you could provide.
7:40 - I did not realize this was on the roof of the Nashville Convention Center. That building is a beautiful piece of art.
For utility workers in the US, there is a standard color scheme used when marking the location of utilities. Sewers are green, electrical is red, comms are orange, water is blue, petroleum is yellow, steam is purple, and pink for everything else. I'd like to see this convention used in future videos, that way if you see these markings in your neighborhood, you know what they mean!
That’s awesome and I didn’t know that!
What kind of situations outside of a factory would the steam pipe be used, or is it just in factories?
2:40
Open sewers are pretty common in India even today. Some are big enough to have contributed to floods, causing tons of diseases
Just wanna let you know, I love this channel, please don't stop making new content! Thank you.
Man I've been wanting to learn about the sewer systems for ages! So thankful! Not kidding
Another important note on storm water treatment, there are modules like Stormceptor and Vortech that are passively designed to skim off oil and settle debris before the water enters the sewer
This is one of my favorites videos you've made, well done!!
This was a really interesting video, especially about swales, a word I’d never used before. I am familiar with something called sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) and swales seem to be an extension of that principle. Enjoying this channel a lot.
I love learning about city infrastructure. I don't know why. I just do.
I also liked how you seamlessly talked about your sponsor. 👍
Siemens is great so it’s not hard to work them in.
I thought the "thanks, Siemens" bit was going to be the only reference to the sponsor.
@@MirzaAhmed89 Me too.
I'm studying engineering geology, and this is the exact kind of thing I want to get into. Thank you!
To me, the obvious solution seems to be a separate system where both streams go to the water treatment plants. However in the event of overflow, only the stormwater stream (the cleaner of the two) gets diverted to the nearby rivers/lakes/oceans as needed.
I'm sure someone has thought of this already and presumably there is some reason this is not feasible?
I think it’s just more expensive. Though those massive combined sewer upgrade pipes aren’t cheap...
I really enjoy these videos.
We had some intense rain here in Phoenix last night, and today I caught myself wondering a few times around my campus why they seemingly have random basins that seem to just collect water instead of just draining it. I was thinking that it can't just simply be for the sake of the plants, because thats too much work to make sense... Now i know its probably so the system doesn't get overwhelmed
I recently saw that Toronto has started projects to fix our waste water overflow problems. Good timing with this video to explain the situation. They will be building a series of massive wells to store the excess wastewater along the Don Valley river which is where much of the city water collects during storms on the way towards lake Ontario.
Great video! Could you do a follow-up on the cities that are starting to use RO to clean waste water and send it back to the taps? I've been curious about that...
That would be a good one. I’ll probably take a little break from infrastructure, but that’s a good candidate.
@@CityBeautiful/videos/videos Maybe you could add a little aside section to that one about sink/toilet combos or ways that end users can also employ the "big infra" solutions? We can all do out part to contribute to the greater issue.
Even if totally cleaned, the city council would have a tough time passing as the people couldn't swallow that. 😶
From time to time youtube show me some beuatiful channels like yours. I'm so glad for it. Keep the excelent job you are doing educating and informing 👏👏👏🤩💙
I visited a water treatment plant once andI will forever and ever remember the smell. The salty, unique smell that is beyond. Was a pretty cool trip though because very insightful.
Montreal has had a CSO with a pair of large collectors for a long while. There are still massive rejects in en environment despite those collectors. At the time it was built, a waste treatment facility was also constructed at the end of the island. It's one of the largest on the planet and that's part of the problem. The solid gets removed, it gets a chemical treatment to remove further particules suspended in the water, but beyond that, it's just released back to the St-Laurence. The effluents form a distinct band of water which can be detected and even seen several more then a hundred kilometres downstream. Trying to find an engineering solution that is practical for providing further treatment of so much water is something which has been studied pretty much from the opening of that waste water facility.
Its so cool knowing this guy lives in sac and can help us to make our "City Beautiful"
I don't know about the situation globally but here in Germany it was a big deal a couple years back that a lot of cities had to partly dismantle and scale down their sewers because they hadn't factored in that saving water would ever become a thing. Therefore they were left with oversized sewer systems that weren't properly flushed by the relatively small amount of water running through it anymore.
That’s really interesting, because you need full pipes for the system to work (If I understand correctly). Thanks for sharing.
@@CityBeautiful Well, they don't need to be _full_ necessarily but the current needs to be strong enough to carry solids with it. Especially in residential areas, this became an issue in many communities.
One interesting solution I've seen was a smaller channel in the center of the oversized pipe, so the maximum capacity wasn't affected for draining storm water but the effective diameter for normal operation was reduced.
The pipes aren't actually oversized, they just need flushing because the slope is not sufficient. Sewer flushing requires water so it's not very efficient.
Surprised you didn't mention Cleveland, Ohio because we have a huge problem here with a combined sewer. Whenever it rains raw sewage is drained into Lake Eerie causing bacterial blooms that make the water toxic.
I just started my university program last week in Environmental Engineering and its interesting hearing th/e things I just heard a couple days ago in a video. One other thing I would like to add that I just learned about is energy neutral wastewater treatment where the wastewater is used to feed bacteria to create methane which is then burned to power the treatment plant. Thought that was another super cool, green way of doing wastewater treatment.
Thanks for the public service announcement for what not to put down the drain
Semen?
While it's true that you shouldn't pour fat down the drain, that's not what causes fatbergs. That information is wrong, because it's cheaper for cities to pretend to fix problems than to actually fix them.
@@DustWolphy It's never cheaper to pretend to fix a problem. Source: Every accident in history.
@@krashd yes but the accident that follows is someone else's fault.
The problem is when it comes back up the drain 😱
You should do a video on losses in infrastructure due to leaks
The worst is when a developing country gets one of these systems gifted to them but then doesn't know how to use them. My city has one of them but there is still a MASSIVE open sewer.
omething often overlooked is the large amount of pumping stations required to get the wastewater to the treatment plant. Something to think about if the power goes out
@Craig F. Thompson I was the manufacturer's rep for the pumps for years. The "wet well" type sewage lift pumping stations are everywhere. I've sold pumps all over the US east of the Mississippi and have yet to see a community without them.
Nowadays most have backup generators but sometimes they fail or run out of fuel. We had a pump station go down in South Jersey one time and had 10 vacuum trucks (honey wagons) sucking the sewage well out and hauling it to the treatment plant
really interesting. A point i would have liked to hear about is that modern water safing toilets etc. bring other problems in the sewer system. Sometimes there isnt enough water in the system to properly clean and run the sewer lines since when the sewers were planned the pipes were for a lot bigger amount of sewage.
Most modern wastewater treatment plants are overbuilt enough that they don't have to discharge raw sewage during high rainfall. They can either handle the high flows and treat it, or they can store the excess on site and treat it over time.
“Underfunded mass transit”
*Laughs in Singapore*
Worms Blink laughs in [insert any rich country exept US or Canada]
Craig F. Thompson I didn't say only rich countries have better transit than US what i meant was all of the wealthy nations do. Some not very rich countries can still have better transit than the US.
@@thischannel4326/videos/videos And most of those countries are a fraction of the size. A more direct comparison would be to California or the NE Corridor (NYC to DC). It's a hell of a lot easier to build out mass transit in a country the size of Ohio than in one the size of the US or Canada. That being said, India and China seem to be doing a pretty good job.
You timed this video perfectly. This week waste wster treatment plant in Warsaw broke down and city gov tried to keep it hidden.
A note on stormwater by a civil engineer: the primary pollutant that we (engineers) are most concerned about is actually dirt.
In a natural environment, very little dirt makes it into waterways, because the ground cover catches it instead. Dirt from stormwater makes the water cloudy, which increases the waters temperature and causes serious harm to fish, blinding them, making it harder to breathe, and in the some cases killing them.
We are concerned about other pollutants as well, but those pollutants (oil, phosphorus, nitrates) often bind to the dirt in the water, so by preventing dirt from entering waterways, you often prevent other harmful pollutants as well.
This video is sponsored by Semens...
Thanks semens!
Siemens
Why is everyone writing "Thanks Semens" in the comments? Am I missing a meme or is this just a juvenile joke by people who don't realize that "semen" has no plural form?
@@unvergebeneid Because some people are not clever enough to know that the obvious is never funny.
@@ericolens3 you def just learned about it in health class
This video makes me want to buy my own Siemens pumping station!
Siemens marketing hq is partying
Great vid! Could you do a video on green rooftops? The debate about them keeps coming up locally and I’m unsure if solar panels or a green rooftop is better for the environment.
kopian12 what are the downsides? They sound great!
A combination of both would be better. Though I guess with green rooftops people are afraid that the roots of plants will penetrate into houses and the weight of plants can collapse ceilings.
Snovaltica well the cost for one. You have to strengthen the structure of the building and roof depending on the scale of the greened roofs. And then there are some conflicts for space, as it’s cheap to put ventilation and AC on a rooftop for with there then might not be enough space. And then also cost for upkeep one might also have to consider.
Mines blue
If we could harness photosynthesis and convert to electrical energy, we wouldn't need home solar panels. Save those for the deserts.
I got this in my recommended because cities skylines official" viewers watch this". Love it great vid
You should look into Israeli water recycling. They recycle something like 90% of their waste water for drip irrigation.
Not to mention most of the water actually comes from desalination (the Mediterranean Sea).
@Joe Franklin 🇮🇱 forever
Better yet do a video about India, a country with one of the most populated, longest and oldest river systems and their sewer system, or lack there of.
But I think this guy's is trained and most experienced in modern urban planning in America, so a video outside of USA will be unlikely
can Palestinians use it or no
@@cartermize6651 im pretty sure they have a surplus of water and share the water with other countries in area.
But its basically recycled piss and whiz. Wonder if the palestinians will object from drinking it if they knew the origin
Thank you!!!!! I hope we'll get these in our country.
your channel is the best.
this is the first thing I watch on christmas morning of course
Yeah my city has been busy for 10 years upgrading and separating our waste water system piecemeal the wetlands near my house have been zoned and rezoned a few times alternately as a storm water biothing and as housing. Also I have noticed that in new areas the road drain gutters all flow into gardens now.
I would recommend “Underground” and “Building Big” by David Macaulay for more information on the systems underneath us.
I love his books! I’ll have to check those out.
City Beautiful They’re gorgeous books. I learned about him through a very gripping PBS adaptation of “Building Big” my library offered on VHS. After checking out the “Tunnels” section, I recommend the parts on bridges and domes.
I googled Chicago to see what we had and learned it was one of the first few cities to do the CSO but it's still not enough.
thanks Siemens and City Beautiful for the video!
Thanks!
Clean drinking /tap water would also be an interesting topic. Depending on where you live it can be a scarce or very seasonal resource. I find it very interesting how cities, who don't have it in abundance deal with it. For example, Singapore tries to recycle more and more of its waste water to drinking quality standard to become less dependent on water from neighboring Malaysia. Hong Kong has a separate pipe system for toilet water for which it uses salt water, so less potable water is wasted. California's Central Valley has a potable water crisis, because the agriculture industry there uses a large amount of potable water for irrigation and the communities in the area have to deal with ground water - which they use for potable water - that is polluted by the discharge of intensive farming.
Time to go in depth! For example, how combined sewers are just an evolution of open sewers i.e. people just dump into whichever flowing water is closest. Combined sewers intercept these open sewers from entering the river and divert them to a treatment plant. But since they also carry stormwater overflows are inevitable and provided for.
Also hidden in this video is how we approach dealing with stormwater. The previous model emphasises conveyance i.e. we build infrastructures to convey stormwater away as quickly as possible. This is how LA got their large stormwater drainage channels. Nowadays we have moved to retention i.e. we hold onto the stormwater as much as possible, releasing them in a controlled manner, and allowing for the ground to absorb back some of this water. Those rain gardens, and also things like detention ponds, vertical gardens and rainwater harvesting, are examples of this new approach.
Thank you!!!!! I hope we'll get these in our country.
youre channel is the best.
Maybe I missed it, but a simple obvious improvement on separated sewers is to let the first runoff of the storm sewer go into the treatment plant, and only after the initial rinse spill to the river.
This is a great video, might forward to my mayor.
This is not a competition that I am proud my area has won, but recently we had a 300 tonne fatberg. It was the result of some illegal dumping by local restaurants.
When I trained to be a teacher in the 1970s, we visited a water treatment site. It was one of the most fascinating trips I've ever been on, and, to our surprise, it did not smell unpleasant. No one took up the offer of a glass of freshly cleaned water at the end, so our guide drank it...
Thank you for adding Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles footage for the people like me who have nothing useful to add to the conversation but are happy to be included nonetheless
Seeing my fellow German company Siemens on a video like this gives you some kind of patriotic feeling.
Nice :)
Thanks for this education!
@Craig F. Thompson what kind of bullshit ist that?! GE and Siemens are rivals
River Des Peres in Saint Louis used to be an open common sewer and when it rains too much or flooding occurs it becomes a common sewer once again. It can be a big problem for obvious reasons
Check out the sewer project going on in my hometown of Greenville SC. Were using a tunnel boring machine to dig a 12 ft diameter pipe under the city.
I love this video thing that we overlook.
They have some interesting informational plaques and signs around areas of Calgary which describe various bits of storm water infrastructure that is cleverly disguised as natural areas. Or is actual natural areas. Or was constructed to "go natural" (like the "storm water dry pond" near my house). It's amazing what you can learn by going for a "stroll" and actually reading those informational signs.
Combined sewers aren't common in all countries mate, Denmark haven't used them since the 70's, rainwater is always seperate since then.
The issue is pre-70's sewers, because are upgrade gradually, turns out, it was smart to ban combined sewers, we get a lot more rain these days.
Enriching. Though it is a solid and good short video about the topic, I could watch/hear hours of lectures about how all these systems work, and wonder about how to implement them in already huge cities with poor sewer systems or even in small projects of ecological villages out in the rural areas.
My campus has multiple experimental green infrastructure projects that have been set up over the last 5 years or so, I participated in the design of the very first of these, but other classmates dedicated themselves more to it and have made later designs and construction of these.
Any thoughts on permeable roads as a way to increase the permeable surface area of a city even further than bioswales? I know Salem, Oregon, started using them in some new developments but I haven't really heard of them much since.
Same with green roofs. If you think about it, all the concert and asphalt in a city basically just makes it into one big sewer pipe.
Chengyan Boon permeable pavement(roads) is being used but sparingly. It has its own pros and cons to consider. Currently it is in storm water management firm’s toolbox but only on occasion because of how much cheaper the other methods are.
Is it true that it’s illegal to have rainwater tanks at your home in USA?
I know people with rain barrels so I hope not!
@@ericolens3 should be legal everywhere.
It's compulsory to have rain water tanks on new home builds where I live in Australia. The idea is any water than falls on your roof ends up in storm water, so you might as well drain it to your tank so you can use it for toilets, gardens, etc.
Everyone still have regular water connections for everything else.
Where abouts in Australia is it mandatory to have rainwater tanks in new builds?
@@BirdTurdMemes Newcastle for starters. No idea where else, but I've heard of it happening elsewhere.
Nebs
Newcastle doesn’t strike me as a drought stricken place, but im not against the law
just find it odd for the area
Good video. It's nice you got Siemens to sponsor you. I remember times when they made phones, I had Siemens MC60
Great content as always 🙌🏼
Survey complete! Please make a video about garbage collection, including how cities become completely chaotic when garbage collection goes on strike. My sister lives in Toronto and the 2009 garbage strike was a complete gong-show. You would be surprise how fragile our cities are, until there is a garbage strike.
Where I live in Athens the water manr at the top of the hill keeps bursting and creating a stream down the road.
This has been happening for the entire 6 years I have lived here.
But why isn't the fat dissolved by the dishsoap people also pour down the drain?!
Lmao
Cooking fat is not the problem. It's just something cities shift the blame to, to get around having to fix the actual problem.
Isnt soap itself made from fat? We need to stop bathing 🤗
I live in a city on a bay so I am very conscious of water and sewer problems. I suppose people at a distance from lakes and the ocean are not as aware of what happens to sewer water. Anyway, at about four minutes in he mentions the split system vs the single system as if they were about the same. The fact is, the combined runoff sewer/wastewater sewer is much worse for the environment. I was not aware any big cities were still using it.
Bear with me, this is somewhat lengthy but is all about an innovative use of urban wastewater...
When it comes to Norther California, most people think about vineyards, wineries, the ocean and their favorite spas. As it turns out, there's quite a lot of geothermal activity in NorCal, which is why there are so many hot springs. What's not as well know is that it's also the home of the world's largest geothermal steam fields, which has the capacity to generate 1,500 Megawatts of power - in the same range as a nuclear power plant!
The Geysers steam field was first tapped in 1921 and large-scale operation started in the 1960's. Power started decreasing in the 1980's due to a lowered water table from steam extraction but an innovative solution was found. Using the "two birds, one stone" approach, the nearby city of Santa Rosa built a 40 mile long pipeline to pump 12 million gallons _per_day_ up into the hills and injected into the ground, recharging the steam field. It's calculated that the injected water produces enough steam to generate an extra 100 MW, enough to provide electricity for an additional 100,000 homes.
srcity.org/1061/Recycled-Water
I've been waiting for this video my entire life!
Bioswales are a pretty great idea. I'd never heard of them before. Thanks.
It doesn't exist because there's no Wikipedia page....neither do I. 🥺😢😱
Wouldn't these bio-swells(?) be able to do all the cleaning then and there if big enough, without need for pipes or cleaners? Mini-ecosystem? How many m² of grassland, insects, and good soil is needed to clear out 1 person's average...output for the year 💩🚽?
There's a cool water treatment facility that uses the grease from grease traps as a biofuel to run their facility.
Water is an invaluable resouce that lots take for granted
I love your vids, they're actually giving me inspiration on what I'd imagine my dream job as.
I really liked this! Please do more like this
When there is trash near manholes I would pick it up and place it in the trash. It makes me feel good to prevent trash going down manholes that cannot be retrieved if it did go down.