COBB COUNTY, Ga. —
Channel 2 Action News has learned a Cobb County water utility is working to get rid of tons of poisonous gas. It uses the chemical to treat the water, but a new system will make a giant water treatment plant less of a terror target.
Instead of using a dangerous chemical, chlorine gas, to sanitize their water, the utility has made its own bleach factory. The system has been installed at a water plant in east Cobb County.
The process involves water in a tube mixed with salt and shot with electricity.
“We apply electric current to it, and a chemical reaction takes places, and it converts it from salt water to a weak bleach,” general manager Glenn Page said.
The system makes enough bleach to fill several 20,000-gallon tanks.
“Before, you used a gas chlorine that was a very hazardous chemical, and this is a much safer product,” Page said.
But the hazard still exists in west Cobb, for now.
“We’re always mindful of a terrorist attack,” Page said.
Strickland was allowed inside a room where 24 tons of deadly chlorine gas is stored. The room will be scrapped for a safer bleach system as part of a $100 million renovation at the plant off Mars Hill Road.
Officials want to prevent a disaster that could result from any accidental or deliberate release of the deadly gas.
“We made a decision to remove this hazard from our community and from our operating environment here,” Page said.
