WaterEngineering students win wastewater treatment competition

In a surprise win, Humboldt State University (HSU) students recently bested engineering students at top ranked California universities to gain first place at the annual American Society of Civil Engineers Mid-Pacific Water Treatment Competition.

Every year engineering students from schools across California including U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Davis, and California State University, Sacramento battle it out to see which team can best resolve a staged water treatment dilemma.

This year teams were asked to build a system that would treat contaminated water that was heading toward a sensitive wetland ecosystem after an earthen levy around a biosolids compost facility had been breached.

The teams were challenged to either design a containment system for the water or a treatment system.

According to the rules, the “system will need to be constructed and operated on the day of the competition as if the emergency were occurring; water treatment and waste removal will need to be efficiently demonstrated.”

In practice, each team was given a ten gallon sample of wastewater that had to be treated in an hour or less.

The competition’s announcement stated, “Using engineering principles, students were tasked with treating ‘polluted’ water for common water-quality problems in a timed, competitive setting.”

It continued, “Designs were scored on cost, speed, efficiency, final water quality as well as an accompanying presentation and report.”

Ultimately, the HSU team won the competition beating U.C. Berkeley by more than thirty points.

While the results may have surprised some, HSU students were unfazed. Each member of the team had extensive hands-on experience with wastewater treatment having repeatedly toured treatment facilities to become familiar with what works and what does not.

In addition, the team consulted Brad Finney, a professor of environmental resources engineering at HSU.