PRESS RELEASES 
Onsite Exhibit Tells Wastewater Treatment Plant Story
The On-the-Home-Front exhibit communicates the message that when motor oil, paint, insecticides, and other hazardous materials are poured down the drain, they end up at the treatment plant.
The Overflow exhibit educates visitors about the hazards of sewer overflows and long- and short-term options for solving the combined sewer overflow problem.
Many Portland, Ore., residents have a better understanding of what happens to water after it goes down the drain, thanks to a $200 000, 158-mz (1700-ftL) exhibit commissioned by the city's Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant, which treats 75% of metropolitan Portland's wastewater.
The city's Bureau of Environmental Services hired a Portland firm, Formations Inc., to plan, design, fabricate, and install three floors of exhibit space defining the wastewater treatment plant's role, mission, and relationship to Portland ratepayers.
Since the exhibit opened in August, it has been popular with visitors, particularly Portland school teachers and students.
Visitors to the exhibit discover that less than 1% of Earth's water is available to living things in fresh, liquid form. With this in mind, visitors can appreciate better why wastewater treatment is critical as they explore the thematically grouped exhibit.
The exhibit's first floor includes introductory concepts about water supply, Portland's watershed, and the city's water distribution and wastewater collection and treatment systems. The second floor covers plant operations and wastewater treatment processes of the past and present. The third floor gives visitors an up-close view of headworks equipment in action, while an accompanying display shows examples of debris extracted from wastewater. An observation deck also offers a bird's-eye view of the grounds below.