Visit S.C. Acet S.A. station of treatment of water serving the town of Tulcea and its small belt the 18/07/03:

Interlocutors:
Petre Caraciobanu directing of the station of treatment
Patrice Cristian Croitoriu engineer of the energy mechanical service.

History:
In 1913, the Marie Queen (of the dynasty of Carol) request that a project already being studied is carried out since 1897. Objective of this project, to serve out of drinking water the population of Tulcea, 20.000 inhabitants. The specifications required to provide 150 L/jour and by anybody.
The town of Tulcea having the advantage of being surrounded of hills, they will choose a gravitating distribution thanks to a tank located at 73m of altitude.
Since, two other tanks were created with 110m of altitude on a close hill.
Today, the city counts 100.000 inhabitants and the demand for water, industry included/understood, is of 1500m³/s.

Water treatment:
1. First stage: Water is pumped directly of the Danube to 6 km of the factory by 2 pipelines of 1m of diameter with a flow of 700 Liters a second (the maximum being of 2100 L/s).
With its arrival in the factory, water is directly mixed with aluminium sulphate and chlorine. This mixture with for goal to destroy, micro-organisms contained in water.

2. Second stage: Water is brought in a large cylindrical concrete tank to open sky. This tank is called decanter. Water remains there 35 to 40 minutes during which all suspended particles (organic sands, particles, etc…) more or less agglomerated with the sulphate of ammonia and chlorine will settle in the content of the tank. Mud thus accumulated is called active mud.
Water is taken continuously in the higher part of the tank (there or it is cleanest).

3. Third stages: Elutriated once, water is sent towards a large filter made up of two layers.
A quartz bed (sand) whose grains have a granulometry ranging between 1 and 2 mm (of diameter).
A plastic filter having holes of 0,5 with 0,7mm of diameter, on which sand rests
This filter (plastic sand +filtre) is cleaned every 12 hours by water injection in the other direction during 10 to 12 min.

Chemical checking:
Every hour a sample is taken on the outlet side of the filter and is directly analyzed in the laboratory of the factory. The purpose of this analysis is to quantify the content of chemical of water (nitrate, sulphate, aluminium, ammonia, pH, etc…). For the moment the daily results are in conformity with the European standards.

Tanks:
On another hill (that of 110 of altitude) Acet installed its seat and two tanks:
- one of 5000 m³ (1m of depth)
- one of 10000m³ (divided into two a 20 m depth)

Here is the system is very simple. Romania is one of the last countries to use it.

Solution of help:
In the event of big problems, bad quality of the water of the Danube or accident in the station for example, Acet lays out, with 100m of depth, of a ground water able to deliver to him 300m³/s of a drinking water.

Water treatment worn:
All worn water resulting from the houses is rejected directly into the Danube.
All technical water resulting from the treatment plant is rejected into the Danube including the active muds collected at the bottom of the decanters.
We do not have a detail on the destination of industrial water. They must legally be reprocessed by industries before rejection in the Danube.

Problems:
- No reprocessing of worn water (domestic and not very industrial)
- an enormous drinking water loss of 75% due to the outdatedness of the network and thus to many escapes. Some of the portions of the network have more than 75 years.
- All the pumps are too old and too powerful. This relates to the pumps taking the water of the Danube and the pumps taking the water of the drinkable water tanks.

Project:
The engineering and design department of Acet board since a few years on the construction of a station of purification. The project tramples and is supported by no policy in load of the management of the city. The roof, several European projects such ISPA at the communal level, or SAPHAR or regional level, are ready to finance the modernization of Acet as well as the construction of the station of purification. Only, because of conflicts of interest, no decision is made on the level of the administration and the projects remain just as it is in the cases.
Tulcea is not a case isolated in Romania. It suffers like many of other cities, of an administration often too heavy and corrupted inherited the communist years. The French associations met in France before our departure are unanimous on the diagnosis, corrupt practice and conflict of interest on all the levels of the hierarchy.
Moreover elected officials have a short-term vision (their mandate) and engage only seldom viable projects in the long run. Blow associations born of twinnings between the French and Rumanian cities refuse to guarantee schedules of conditions Rumanian too vague and nondurable.

Prospects:
The only chance of Tulcea, like much of other Rumanian cities, will be integration with the Européenne union. The current government decided to play the chart of adhesion, it thus carries out a race against the clock to satisfy the European environmental criteria. It will thus make very to respect the directives which oblige a purification of worn water for example..

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