Wiki Assignment

             
                     By Clark, J. The Blackwater River
            From (http://fiddlefreak.com/2009/12/08/coal-country-mp3/)

The following paragraphs are for update the scientific stub in Wikipedia – Blackwater (coal).

During coal preparation, certain wastes like blackwater are produced.  The untreated blackwater can damage the ecosystems and people themselves. Blackwater contains numerous amounts of hazardous substances, including carcinogenic compounds and heavy metals, which make it extremely dangerous; the blackwater damages everything it touches. 

According to 2005’s coal production country list, China (2,204,729,000 ton) produces the most coal in the world, followed by United State (531,822,000 ton) and India (407,013,000 ton).

China, as the largest coal produced country, but failed to hander the coal waste. Certain companies give up the advanced blackwater treatment, because those technologies are too expensive for them. Eventually they dig a huge hole in the ground to dispose the blackwater. Every year, 2.5 million ton of untreated blackwater are discharged into the hole. Regardless it would seep into the aquifer below.

A blackwater recycling system can reduce the damage of blackwater. There are several types of recycling system, for plant use, garden use, even for drinking water. The following system is for plant use only. First of all, let the blackwater settle and added primary colony of bacteria to work for 24 hours. Then let the backwater goes into three separate rooms, which are Aeration, Sludge settling and Irrigation.

Aeration step

Once the blackwater is injected into this room, bacterial settle and multiply on the sludge particles, digesting a variety of nutrients and oxygen from the sludge.

Sludge settling

After the aeration step, the blackwater goes into a sludge settling chamber. Sludge sinks to the bottom, and partially treated water is forced upwards through a mechanism that has another bacteria biomass covering it. This colony of bacteria then consumes most of the oxygen in the mix and breaks down any remaining solid particles.

Irrigation

The remaining blackwater passes into the irrigation chamber where it is clarified and chlorinated. This process required by the local health authorities.

After the last step, the machine would pump the recycled blackwater out automatically. The treated blackwater is no longer harmful to the environment or people.

I have to say, Wikipedia is not reliable because everybody can create an account to edit the information online. Beside no one would correct the mistake. Like our TA – Erin Dul said, on average there are three or more mistakes in Wikipedia. Well, we should never ever use Wikipedia as our academic research.

I don’t understand why, when I Google something, the Wikipedia site always pop up in the first place. So when you have no idea what the topic is, Wikipedia might be a good tool to get an idea what is that. 

External Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(coal)

We both have the same idea of Wikipedia, unreliable but still useful.
Internal Link: http://www.ales204n-briggs.blogspot.ca/2012/03/wonderful-world-of-wikipedia-wiki-sites.html