This is a short, but final post of my Vienna trip. You will have read quite a bit about the town so far. Here are some pictures of Vienna from a slightly different perspective, that of a water engineer.
John Street station is near the old “Schiebekammer”, which was crucial to Vienna’s water supply in the 19th century. Large aqueducts would transport water into the city, which was then pumped from this location. The conference I attended was held inside this building, which has since been turned into a function venue.
The old “Schiebekammer”, with the conferences banners (or shall I say “flags”)…
The roman numerals read out the year 1873, I’m assuming “since” 1873. Quite old, but still standing. I’m sure it has undergone restoration several times too. You can read a bit more about Vienna’s water supply here.
We were treated to two technical tours of Vienna waterworks. The first was Austria’s largest wastewater treatment plant. Lots of wastewater in this area being treated and released into the Danube river downstream. Any water engineer that looks at an aerial view of the plant will know it is massive.
I won’t go into nitty gritty detail about the plant. If you’re interested, I received a video from them, which will explain the process in down-to-earth English and with lots of pretty 3D animations. I was actually quite impressed of their promotional video, very educational.
Most of the tour took place by bus because the plant was simply too huge.
They literally refer to these tanks as racecourses, probably an easy way to remember what they look like!
The day was quite hot and after looking at this, you’d have to ask yourself, who’s tempted to jump in? The grass on the opposite side makes it look quite homely and tempting too. The dark colour is not due to the water itself, but to the light reflection and the channel.
After treatment, water is fed into these large circular clarifiers, where it sits for a long time before it is discharged into the river. The “little” frame-looking thing sitting above the circular tank skims the scum off the surface. They may not look like it, but they’re attached to a motor and rotate around the tank at a very slow rate.
Got a chance to walk along this bridge. The tank’s diameter is about 64m, believe me, it’s quite big. I heard that there are two circular water towers in the city (which I did not get the chance visit) that have this diameter as well.
Went up to the roof of a pumping station nearby, was greeted by a permanent resident…
We got to see most of the plant, but soon after it was time to return to the office building for lunch.
Frankfurters with bread and sauce! Gotta enjoy the sausages here as much as I can! Did you know that in Vienna they call these Frankfurters and not Vienna Franks?
The second technical tour took us out of town to Moosbrunn, where an advanced treatment process plant was installed to treat extracted groundwater for supply to the city.
View Moosbrunn in a larger map
As you can see, we were literally taken outside of town… nothing but agriculture.
After a short presentation on the layout of the plant, we were pretty much led through the facility, which was actually quite small in terms of surface area, but quite tall in terms of floors.
An Ozone treatment controller for tertiary treatment of water so that we get rid of all the nasty stuff in it. A lot of research is put into the purification of water. It’s interesting to see the big contrast between Australia where I work and Austria. One place has too little water, while the other has too much. It’s no surprise that you’d see a stark contrast in research topics too.
Massive pipelines pump groundwater from the wells through the plant. After treatment, it is sent to Vienna.
Wiener Wasser, the main company in charge of the water infrastructure here in Vienna have also provided public drinking fountains. Can’t miss them, they’re all around Vienna and will refresh you on a very hot day. Certainly helped me during my walkabouts and museum visits.
That was about all I wanted to share as far as the water chapter is concerned. I didn’t think it’d be wise to bore you with lots of technical detail. In terms of my overall impression of Vienna, if there hadn’t been that bad a heat wave during the trip, I would have been less exhausted. The city is impressive in its size, culture, appearance, efficiency and many more aspects and you’d certainly find it easy to travel around. I personally would probably not want to live there, but if you’re thinking of road tripping around Europe, I’d certainly recommend it as part of your itinerary. Just make sure you have a good idea of what you want to see as you’ll be spoilt for choice otherwise.
Read more about my Vienna trip in this series of posts:
0) Off to Vienna for the rest of the week…
0) Vienna in June – A precursor…
1) Vienna in June – Walkabout Chapter Part 1
2) Vienna in June – Walkabout Chapter Part 2
3) Vienna in June – Culture Chapter
4) Vienna in June – Water Chapter