ABSTRACT
As the chapter opening suggests, water and wastewater operators both perform and analyze the results of laboratory tests. Because of this, they must have a working knowledge of water chemistry. In this chapter, we discuss basic water chemistry-the key word is basic. Not all water and wastewater operators must be chemists, but they all must be able to perform very basic chemical testing. More importantly, all water and wastewater operators must be competent operators-basic knowledge of water chemistry fundamentals aids in attaining competency.
