Wastewater

An owner had three proposals with three different technologies on the cover. We quoted the same building all three ways ourselves. Field notes on what actually separated extended aeration, fixed film and a batch reactor on a Cebu site.

A new sewage treatment plant failed its first compliance test on ammonia. Nothing was mechanically wrong. Field notes on what commissioning actually is, why BOD comes back before ammonia, and why the acceptance test date is a technical decision.

Small STPs fail more often than large ones, and not because they are cheap. Field notes from Cebu on why 5 cubic meters a day is harder to operate than 500 — and how I design small sewage treatment plants differently now.

Field notes on water reuse in the Philippines: why reuse projects die on the spreadsheet, what the second pipe really costs, the honest cost per cubic metre, and when reclaimed water is actually worth building.

Filipino clients are now checking our sewage treatment plant designs with AI. Field notes on what it catches, what it misses, and the one time it was confidently wrong.