Hugh-Daniel Grobler and Farrol Hendricks, colleagues at the Franskraal Water Treatment Plant in Gansbaai, were joint winners in the category for “Best Process Controller Water at Water Treatment Plants of less than 10Ml/day capacity”.
More than 200 water and waste water process controllers from various municipalities in the Western Cape attended a workshop at the Thusong Centre in Hawston in November and December last year.
Overstrand Municipality hosted the Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA)’s Western Cape Process Controller Workshop.
Purpose of Workshop
The purpose of this workshop was to equip Process Controllers with skills and knowledge to operate their water and wastewater treatment plants effectively, encourage best practice to further the Blue and Green Drop statuses of municipalities, and the use of new water technologies.
Excellence recognised
As part of the programme, (WISA) also hosted an awards evening to recognise excellence in the workplace and acknow-ledge Process Controllers for the commendable work done providing communities with safe drinking water, where Hugh-Daniel and Farrol were awarded.
Strict criteria
Strict criteria were set for these categories, which, amongst other, include knowledge of the process and different components of the plant, record keeping, operation and control maintenance and innovation and resourcefulness.
Hugh-Daniel and Farrol opera-tes and controls the process at the Franskraal-, Stanford- and Buffeljagsbaai Water Treatment Plants (WTW).
They also oversee the process and control of three membrane WTW’s, namely De Kelders, Pearly Beach and Baardskeer-dersbos.
10 Years of experience
Hugh-Daniel and Farrol are both registered as class IV Process Controllers and both have ±10 years experience.
They have an in depth knowledge and some of the courses they have completed are: Supervisory Training Course and an Advanced Course on the Operation and Maintenance of Membranes (University of Stellenbosch); N3 Waste Water Treatment Practice, as well as N3 Wastewater Treatment Practice (Boland College).
Innovation
and Resourcefulness
Hugh-Daniel and Farrol have been hard at work for the last couple of months. This particularly relates to the optimisation of the process at the Franskraal WTW with a view to cut purification costs. This meant trying out various other chemicals and many hours of laboratory work and extra/additional ongoing monitoring. This exercise has been hugely successful and costs have been slashed significantly.
In conjunction to this they requested that the sand in the rapid gravity filters be replaced to restore full and adequate performance of this particular process, which was done.
Long way
Hugh-Daniel started his career at Gansbaai municipality in 2007 and Farrol in 2009. Both of them were out-contracted to Veolia Water Solutions with effect from 1 November 2015, which is still their permanent employer.
