Water Efficiency May 2012 : Page 39
house equipment and controls, and fencing and landscaping. Plant capac-ity is 250,000 liters per day, but it can be detuned in winter to approximately one-third of that capacity. The water is specified as Class “B”, which is suitable for controlled ir-rigation. “Use is purely for irrigation,” reiterates Gnauck. Although “there is no traditional measure of ROI on this plant,” he says the club expects to benefit from increased membership due to lush fairways and greens. In addition, be-cause the plant produces treated water high in nutrients, the club will see sub-stantial savings in fertilizer costs each year. Offsetting the initial expense, financial assistance from the Victorian State Government was obtained, as well as a financial contribution from Barwon Water, the authority re-sponsible for the rising main. SERVICE WITH A SMILE While maintenance personnel at the Curlewis Golf Club in Australia handle the day-to-day management of their water treatment system, not every cli-ent is equipped—or wants—to. “Most cities pay for garbage collection,” says Louis LeBrun, vice president of marketing for APT Water in Pleasant Hill, CA. “There’s no reason water treatment shouldn’t be a service, too.” Water that would have gone to a central wastewater treatment plant is treated at small-scale decentralized location to offset demand. “It’s the same process,” explains Andrew Simon, sales and marketing analyst, “for lower cost and less infra-ing to replenish water. Reuse makes economic sense, is sustainable, and is our future.” Anaheim, CA, city leaders recog-nize that. They incorporated APT’s HiPOx pre-engineered and fully-automated water treatment system to remove the last level of compounds from 107,000 gallons wastewater per day, which is used to make ice for the Anaheim Ducks hockey rink. “Recharge from the Colorado River is climate-dependent. Recharge from reuse is climate-independent.” structure.” Centralized reuse opera-tions at large treatment plants typically means expensive pipe installation and higher energy costs. There are multiple steps prior to APT’s biological process, which provides disinfection and removes persistent organics, using oxida-tion technology. Rather than create another waste stream, LeBrun says APT eliminates most compounds by destroying them. The goal is com-plete destruction of these compounds and other minerals that could cause problems, including biologically toxic or non-degradable materials such as pesticides, petroleum constituents, and volatile organic compounds. The advanced oxidation process leaves no harmful by-products or process re-siduals. Water is refreshed for irriga-tion, toilets and even potable use. APT’s process is the only ozone-based treatment accepted under the Title 22 standard, Simon adds. It qualifies for unrestricted water reuse by the California Board of Health. It’s designed to provide a level of treat-ment that meets or exceeds drinking quality; no other treatment process is needed. “Discharge limits are more strin-gent on wastewater than drinking water,” states LeBrun. “Treating it to an extra level doesn’t cost a lot more; the incremental cost is lower than hav-“It was part of the waste treatment stream,” says LeBrun. “Now, the com-munity benefits from it.” The biggest ozone-based AOP project in the US is APT’s flagship—a 30 million-gallons-per-day Aquifer Storage Recover Project for the City of Wichita, KS. It involves seasonal operation of a water treatment plant to treat storm water from the Little Arkansas River. Clean water is injected into the Equus Beds Aquifer for re-charge and to be used for the drinking water supply. Due to its location in the heart of Kansas farmland, the water con-tained levels of atrazine, an herbicide that passes through typical treatment processes. Testing in 2009 indicated that the process met the established water quality goals for atrazine reduc-tion and achieved all Primary Drink-ing Water Standards required by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Currently, it processes 30 million gallons per day, but LeBrun indicates that capacity could be increased with-out the need to add another plant. “The benefit of our technology is it’s scalable,” he says. “We can add ca-pacity and quality or modify the pro-cess for higher levels at a later date.” Decentralized treatment plants are an economically practical option. “Cities could do big infrastruc-MAY 2012 WATER EFFICIENCY 39
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