Geneva Water Treatment Plant

The City of Geneva, in response to impending regulatory requirements and mounting public concern for high quality drinking water, decided to improve its water system by installing a new water treatment facility. The improved water system consists of a series of wells (new and existing), new raw water transmission mains, a new water treatment plant, and new finished water transmission mains to convey the treated water to the distribution system. Also, because Geneva is a western suburb of Chicago with farmland to its west, the architect and city decided to make the water treatment facility to have a rural like setting. The dome of the tank is designed to be a replica of a traditional silo still found on many farms in the area. It complimented the barn-like design of the neighboring facility. Inside the gray Cady Aquastore, Inc. TecStore™ silo is a lime softening process consisting of decarburization tank, chemical feed, and aerator tank. Lime softening utilizes chemical precipitation to remove calcium, magnesium, and other dissolved constituents such as radium. In the lime softening process, a combination of lime, soda ash, carbon dioxide, and other coagulants are added to the raw water to facilitate the precipitation of calcium and magnesium. Radium is removed from the water by the same mechanism. The settled solids are then removed from the treatment process. After softening, the water is filtered to remove any solids that have carried over from the settling basins.