"A Clarifier Startup Bypass"

Before the days of computers, presentations were made using viewgraphs. FYI, viewgraphs were transparent plastic pages made from hard copies of your sketches as well as your text pages. You projected these on a large screen in an auditorium or a conference room by placing them on a glass screen of the projector. And you had to reserve these projectors in advance for your presentation.

While cleaning my old files, I came across one such color faded viewgraph I had made in the late 1970’s to present a startup bypass scheme for a new water clarifier for a major refinery expansion. The clarifier was installed and commissioned much sooner than the process units so the product water was not needed. But it was decided not to shut down the new clarifier so that operations would not have to go through the restart process. A question was raised as to what we did with the extra water. The viewgraph below answered the question. As there was no usage for this water, it flowed from the open top product storage tank commonly known as Clearwell to the surface drainage system. And I proudly claim that this image is from my own hand drawn sketch. 

Received a call from the waste water treatment operations a couple of days later that we were not only overloading their treatment plant but we were also killing their bugs. So we had to shut down the new clarifier after all.