Lagoon systems comprise a series of lagoons, usually earthen, through

which the sewage passes. The lagoons are normally 1 to 3 metres deep
with retention times between 3 and 20 days in each lagoon. A typical
lagoon system has between 4 and 10 lagoons, depending on the degree
of treatment required. Typically lagoons remove toxic chemicals and
metals to a slightly greater degree than activated sludge.
Lagoon systems rely on a population of bacteria forming in each
lagoon to break down pollutants in the sewage.

A land filtration system consists of the periodic inundation of the land with
raw sewage to a depth of around 100 millimetres on areas prepared as
either flat bays surrounded by banks, or as graded bays.
These bays have a gradient of 0.1% to 2%, and receive sewage at
the elevated end by means of distribution channels.
The sewage is purified as it filters through the soil, where some of
the suspended solids in it are removed, and the filtered liquid sewage is
captured at the lower end of the bay by an earthen drain cut below the
level of the water table. Nutrients are used by the grass and pollutants are
broken down by the bacteria in the soil. It usually takes around five days
for the paddocks to dry out after which sheep and cattle graze on the
paddocks for about two weeks before the land is flooded with sewage
again.

In the grass filtration process, sewage is continuously passed at a slow

rate over graded areas planted with a water-tolerant grass species such
as Italian rye grass. This species is both fine-stemmed and thick in growth.
Bays are usually designed so that an average 36 to 48 hours is
required for sewage to travel the length of a bay.
As sewage trickles through the vegetation, more suspended matter
is filtered out and the pollutants are removed by a film of bacteria which
builds up on the grass and then more by bacteria in the soil.
The treated sewage is then collected in a drainage network. As soil
permeability is not important in this process, areas where the soil is of a
heavy clay texture are used.

Chemical oxygen demand (COD) is a measure of the capacity of water to

consume oxygen during the decomposition of organic matter and the
oxidation of inorganic chemicals such as ammonia and nitrite. COD
measurements are commonly made on samples of waste waters or of
natural waters contaminated by domestic or industrial wastes. Chemical
oxygen demand is measured as a standardized laboratory test in which a
closed water sample is incubated with a strong chemical oxidant under
specific conditions of temperature and for a particular period of time. The
test reveals that the chemical demand of oxygen is low compared to the
biological demand of oxygen.

Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) is a measure of the oxygen used by

microorganisms to decompose this waste. If there is a large quantity of
organic waste in the water supply, there will also be a lot of bacteria
present working to decompose this waste. In this case, the demand for
oxygen will be high (due to all the bacteria) so the BOD level will be high.
As the waste is consumed or dispersed through the water, BOD levels will
begin to decline.