Pretreatment Facilities Recently Installed
at Whirlpool's 41 North Plant
CARL R. MORRIS, Manager
Evansville Division
Whirlpool Corporation
Evansville, Indiana
INTRODUCTION
The Whirlpool Corporation recently installed an industrial waste water neutralization
facility at one of its manufacturing plants in Evansville, Indiana, for the purpose of
complying with the Federal and State Water Quality Standards. The treatment facility is
also the source of the subject matter used for this paper.
This paper is in a number of ways a chronological report, (even though specific dates
are not shown), on the procurement of data required to develop an optimum solution to the
then existing industrial waste water problem and on designing and constructing the facility.
However, in other ways this paper is an engineering report addressed to the nature of the pH
equipment problem, and how it has been resolved in our facility.
The Whirlpool Highway 41 North Plant is a modern, large appliance plant used for
manufacturing household refrigerators. The plant is located north of the city of Evansville
adjacent to the municipal airport and is equipped to do the necessary fabricating, finishing,
assembling, packing, crating, and shipping required for this type of business.
A large number of processes such as metal cleaning, pickling of steel parts prior to
porcelain enameling, phosphatizing prior to painting, sulfuric acid anodizing, organic and
porcelain enamel coating applications, etc., are required and result in waste water effluents
which are or can be undesirable if discharged directly into a drainage ditch or municipal
sewage treatment plant.
A major part of the highway 41 north facility was built in the early 40's for the original
purpose of manufacturing airplanes, and from that time until the early part of 1972, all
storm and industrial waste waters were collected in a relatively large concrete storm sewer
system which discharged into a small open drainage ditch known as sonntag ditch. Also
during the same period of time, all sanitary waste had been collected in a separate sewer and
discharged to the city sewage system thru a lift station and force line which runs from the
facility to a combination sewer on the extreme north side of the city.
It became evident in the late 60's as the ecology movement gained momentum and the
state defined its problems and developed plans to implement the requirements of the clear
water quality act of 1965, that industrial waste waters would have to be treated before being
discharged into the ditch or that the sewage would have to be pretreated and pumped into
the Evansville sewage system for final treatment.
WASTEWATER CHARACTERISTICS
At this point in time we knew very little about the characteristics of the industrial waste
waters discharged into Sonntage Ditch and almost nothing about sewage treatment. As a
result we procured the professional services of the Hall Laboratories (Calgon Corporation)
to assist us in:
(1) Accurately defining the characteristics of these industrial waste waters,
(2) Developing preliminary waste treatment plant alternatives, and
(3) Procuring the necessary data for a number of problems that had to be resolved
with the Evansville Board of Works, Henry B. Steeg and Associates Inc. (engi-
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