After a tiring travel yesterday, we visited the waste water treatment plant (ARA) of Basel Landschaft.
The waste water plant had a purpose of treating waste water from homes, streets and industry and also cleaning the part of the Rhine within the city.
Mr Pascal Hubmann was the gentle fellow who took time to show us around the facility.
First to know were the various administrative and Laboratory departments at the facility. The facility was built around 1977 and was re-facilitated around 2007. There was more changes at the station i noticed, compared to what i saw and experienced two years ago with Mr. Petitjean.
The outlets of the sewage plant after waste water treatment includes,
- Clear water to the Rhine
- Bio-gas for water heating and electricity generation
- Dehydrated Slug to Landfill
- Sand to landfills
Technical Experience
The general process of the plant can be divided in two;
Mechanical and Biological Processes
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| Screening Machine |
- Mechanical Treatment
The waste water intake part of the plant has an open air pump system taking 500l/sec of water to the sieving station. The open case pump is very important to prevent clogging due to large materials like wood and branches that finds their way to the station. This is also important for aeration of the intake water.
The waste water at the screening level is a delicate act, that has now been complicated with morning screening machines with 6mm and 20mm screens. This machine also have objects sensors, that activates the appropriate screen size via the presence and size of an object.
A sedimentation chamber settles and absorbs sand from the waste water after screening.
A dehydration chamber washes and dries the sand which is transported to landfills.
A 4mm screening system then screens the water before it enters the pre-clearifier.
2. Biological Treatment
A Batch biological process is used at this stage.Sequential batch reactors are a type of activated sludge process for the treatment of wastewater. SBR reactors treat wastewater such as sewage or mechanical biological treatment facilities in batches. Oxygen is bubbled through the mixture of wastewater and activated sludge to reduce the organic matter.
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| Reactors |
There are 5 reactors of 8400 cubic meters volume each. Each reactor has four stirrers and is aerated at 100%. Also 1200 Descender or Prefurated rubbers discs pumped water into the reactor.
Also present in the reactors were Oxygen (O2) , Ammonia and nitrogen probes.
The treated effluent is taken and suitable for discharge to the Rhine.Some of the settled slug are kept and used during another cycle of the process. about 70% of the slug is pumped into a slug digest-or.
After 30 days, the digest-or gives out slug matter and Biogas as its output.
The biogas is used in a gas fueled generator which powers the plant and also used to heat water for the FCB football pitch and also some general swimming pools and houses during the winter.
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| Cafe Discussion |
One-third of the the bio-gas is used for electricity generation and 2/3s of it is used to boil hot water.
The slug matter is pumped into a Centrifuge machine, that turns at 4000 turns/min. Which dehydrates and increases amount of solid matter the slug from 4% to 30%.
At this section is a moisture Analyser which determine which aims at measuring a low moisture concentration in the slug matter. This stage is very important before
incineration process.
The aches after incineration contains more phosphorous and because current technology cannot really extract this from the aches, the ashes are currently stored at landfill sites to be mined in the future when such a technology is available.
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| Flight Simulation |
Other Notable observations was the solar power plants at the station.
And the number of Staff at the facility.
Promising and interesting events also include when we had the opportunity to meet the Director of the station who shared his interest in having for internship training. Mrs. Petitjean was in full support of this idea and her role in this can never be over look nor forgotten. We hope for further activities to be done on this idea.
After the excursion, Mr. Hubsmann pointed out some facts comparison of Centralized and Decentralized waste water treatment system. Most Ghanaian use decentralized system of waste treatment. And recently, most people are having the idea of having a centralized system for towns and even houses in the new sites. But he explains that, centralized system is more costly, and Switzerland still uses thata because the pipe lines have already been layed and they cannot reverse either wise.
Afterwards, we visited Aunt Margrethe at Frenkendorf. Mrs. Margrethe is a cousin of Mrs. Ruth Petitjean. And she requested to meat us. Here husband also knew how interested we will be to use and practice with his Flight Simulator.
When i visited them in 2015, his Flight simulator was still under construction. A system that had an actual airplane cockpit restructured to fit a room. Three projectors were controlled by a couple of computers to present a live and almost real fight simulation.
Even though Mr Kurt wasn't around - and i would have loved to meet him again- a friend of his made our day and exciting one.
Well its was a very nice dinner, a good flight and i surely couldn't resist to touch that grand piano.
Today we returned back to Ghana. We left Arisdorf at about 7:30am, and we left Basel as around 10am. We arrived at Amsterdam a around 11:45am.
After 4 hours transit at Amsterdam, we left around 5pm including an additional delay of 1 hour in the plane.
There is time to live, and a time to die. A time to begin, and a time to end. The drawing of a curtain had mysteries beside each end. This has been, is and always will. May be to the end. And speaking of endings, one might expect sorrow, one might imagine joy, but another soo complicated with his thoughts will smile. For what happened behind the scenes, tells the true story. 
One of the oldest and difficult professions in history is quarry. Mountains have been flattened as our streets gets paved, concretes get richer and pillars are strengthened.
even though we have driven to Basel city- i.e to Pearl shop, Zoo, etc- we never explored Basel City on foot.
This time, i the trip was made with Miss Kathrine, Aunty Ruth's Sister.
I met her in 2015 and was glad to see her again. At 2015, we departed with no expectation to see each other again. But time and chance, says ecclesiastes , and time and chance was so evident.
The National day atmosphere started with the sounds and flashes of fire works yesterday. It was another moment of its own, watching this up hill at Arisdorf. Basel city has been known for some time now in the world for putting up and displaying such a massive scale of fireworks in the city. Most citizens also put up private fireworks that presents a big change in this constantly quiet and silent atmosphere of Switzerland.
I also noticed that, maybe its not the Average citizen that might be closed, calm and isolated, but most people are so because of the massive amount laws checking them. Thus, one - am told- is not allowed to use certain machines or make certain noise during certain time of the day. The case was how ever different today when people are always allowed to lunch fire crackers into the sky. It was a very different atmosphere all over. At a point we felt it was over done by a close neighbors.
This was really a breakfast buffet we could help ourselves with all thy had, as many times as we could. Farmers around the whole Arisdorf community actually organised this together and am told they actually do this every year. This years brunch was also sponsored by MIGROS.
We had a nice walk time with Ben, the son of Kim.-whisper :the Canadians- haha..
This morning we had a wonderful guest, Mr. Rafael. Rafael works as a Pastor at the Vineyard church and also as a deacon at the local church here in Arisdorf. We had a nice time discussion a large range of religious views.
I write this particular post a reminder and mark for all prophesy and word of knowledge declared on this day.
Later in the afternoon we received some Canadian guests here after general work was done here.
Today we went to church here at Arisdorf.
The Bern Minster is a Swiss Reformed cathedral, in the old city of Bern. Built in the Gothic style, its construction started in 1421. Its tower, with a height of 100.6 m, was only completed in 1893.
This time was nice and Mrs. Lottie showed us a lot.
We retired home and another travel was successful by the grace of God. We had a relaxing eveing chatting outside till 00:00 with Mrs. Petitjean.
This morning we helped Aunt Margrethe with her garden hedge. After which we received a lovely gift from her.
Travelling abroad also comes with great responsibilities. And we have surely not forgotten the immense expectations back home. Almost everyone expects a gift and the large family numbers makes this no easy task. We received some gift-able items from Mrs. Petitjean before and we went shopping at Germany today to catch up with the list today.
Around 17:00, Mr. Surer took us out for lunch on a hill at Sissach. Mr Surer is one of the prominent and very respectable sponsor of some of our projects in Ghana. He explained his satisfactory with Mr. Petitjean's work in Ghana. He also explained to us what motivates him to support and sponsor projects. He also mentioned how glad he was to see people drink and have access to clean water.
We took the boat La Suisse from Montreux to Laussane. This waas and hour and fifeteen minutes ride.La Suisse (1910) is the grande dame of the Belle Epoque paddle steamers on Lake Geneva, Switzerland. It cruises mostly between Lausanne and Montreux.
We also had the chance to see how the engine coupled mechanical system moved the boat forward.
The morning cloud above the valley was very thick and beautiful. And we slowly drove through the clouds as we descended.
During a luch break at Mc Donalds, we decided to visit Emmental Cheese, after that Kambley.
Emmental cheese is a yellow, medium-hard Swiss cheese that originated in the area around Emmental, Canton Bern. It has a savory, but mild taste. 
After witnessing and tasting some prepared cheese, we traveled to Kembley.