Scheduled visits are now possible at the Lebanon Water Company’s Water Treatment Plant. Visits will be custom-designed depending on the type of group, be it a school field trip or a prospective corporate client. It’s also part of an effort to showcase the modern Water Treatment Plant that water company employees boast has some of the highest-quality tap water available anywhere. It was a St. Augustine eighth grade group that experienced the first this month.
Read a complete story in this week’s The Lebanon Enterprise, 03.16.2022 issue, available on many news stands beginning tonight.
By John Bramel
Content creator for
Lebanon Tourist & Convention Commission
Whoa. Talk about hands-on immersion.
You might want to bring those Muck boots to use while gathering water samples and collecting aquatic specimens from the Rolling Fork River.
You might want a pair of gloves as you move in to try and quickly use a repair clamp to stop a leaking 6-inch waterline.
Bring your best mental tool box: you’re going to move though some of the best filtration, treatment and water analyzation processes available in any raw water treatment plant in Kentucky.
It’s all part of the new visitation process—school groups, business groups, corporate clients and corporate prospects, and more—now underway at the Lebanon Water Works Water Treatment Plant near Calvary, KY.
“The goal of opening up the water treatment plant to scheduled visitation is to expand the learning on topics students are already receiving in school,” said Daren Thompson, superintendent of Lebanon Water Works Company. “Tours like today will allow students to learn more about the health of their water sources, the process of treating water, and how when they wake up each morning high-quality drinking water ‘magically’ comes out of their faucet.”
Scheduled visits will be custom-designed, depending on the type of group, be it a school field trip or a prospective corporate client.
It’s also part of an effort to showcase the modern Water Treatment Plant that Thompson boasts has some of the highest-quality tap water available anywhere.
The first group to benefit from the new visitation process was Richard Crum’s eighth grade science class from St. Augustine Elementary. They arrived on a bright, sunny morning during the first week of March 2022. Within a few minutes of stepping off the bus they were on the banks of the Rolling Fork River, the Marion County community’s primary source of raw water. They gathered their own individual water samples and looked for aquatic life, indicative of a healthy watershed.
Before mid-day they had built filters to improve their raw water sample, moved through treating and testing processes, were deeply involved in the high tech processes of pushing the treated water through the distribution system to customers…and making sure that distribution system runs smoothly.
The staff at the treatment plant carefully guided the students using props constructed by the staff. And in many instances the staff let the students push the buttons and pull the levers that moved thousands of gallons of water through processes.
And in the case of attempting to fix the water line with sprouting leaks, the students got wet.
“The activities planned today will engage the students with real-world problem-solving activities, and not just a lecture,” said Thompson. “Our industry, like many in Marion County, are STEM-focused…science, technology, engineering and math. We need the youth of our area to consider future jobs in these STEM career paths, and also understand the water challenges in our area.”
Kaylee Clark, one of the eighth grade students, was mightily impressed.
“I think it’s really cool the insight we get doing this, that we don’t see by just holding a glass of water in your hand,” she said. “And it makes the learning experience really interesting.”
The science teach Crum said, “These folks (the water company staff) really did an excellent job. They really elevated the learning experience beyond what’s possible with a classroom environment.”
Interested in inquiring about a scheduled visit/tour/field trip to the Lebanon Water Works Company Water Treatment Plant? Contact Daren Thompson at (270) 692-2491, or Water Treatment Plant Manager Mandy Spalding at (270) 692-3626.
