Performance of a baffled facultative pond treating piggery wastes

This paper shows the performance of a baffled facultative pond for the treatment of piggery wastes. The full-scale system is composed of an equalizer, one decanter (DP), two anaerobic ponds (LA1 and LA2), one facultative pond (LF), with five baffles, and one maturation pond with water hyacinths (LAG). The studies were conducted over a 12 month period in the west region of Santa Catarina, Brazil. The system was supplied daily with a volume of 3 m³/day of farm wastes. A good performance of the treatment system was obtained with average removal efficiencies of 98% for chemical oxygen demand, 93% for total solids, 98% for total phosphorus, 92% for total nitrogen, 7 log units of faecal coliforms and 5 log units of total coliforms. The facultative pond performed well, removing 43% of the chemical oxygen demand, 47% of total nitrogen and 54% of total phosphorus. It was found that the first baffle in the facultative pond was mainly responsible for the efficiency of this pond, and compared with another study the introduction of the baffles improved the removal efficiency by 20% for total phosphorus.