Changes in Pumping-Induced Groundwater Quality Used to Supply a Large-Capacity Brackish-Water Desalination Facility, Collier County, Florida: A New Aquifer Conceptual Model

Arico, Quillan L.; Kassis, Zoie R.; Maliva, Robert G.; Guo, Weixing; Manahan, W. Scott; Missimer, Thomas M.

doi:10.3390/w13141951

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The impact of a fault shows some enhanced upward movement of higher salinity water in some wells, which is similar to that found in the North Cape Coral Plant, Florida [42], and the City of Fort Myers, Florida Plant [46]. The water quality changes did not show extreme increases in salinity as found at the City of Clearwater, Florida facility [47] or a reduction in salinity as found at the South Collier County, Florida Plant [48].…”

Section: Comparison Of the Updated Model Projections To The Real Data...supporting

confidence: 70%

Impacts of Feedwater Quality Change on the Oldest Continuously Operated Brackish-Water Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant in the United States

Pearson

Hegy

Missimer

2021

Water

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Brackish groundwater is abundant in many coastal zones of the world. The water can be economically treated with low-pressure reverse osmosis. A key issue is the stability of the feedwater pumped from groundwater systems. Commonly, groundwater solute-transport models are used to evaluate the long-term changes in salinity with time that impact brackish-water reverse osmosis (BWRO) desalination system process design. These models are run to assess changes over a 20- to 40-year period. The City of Cape Coral, Florida operates two regional BWRO facilities with the South Plant being the oldest continuously operated system in the world. This facility has a capacity of 68,182 m3/d and can treat raw water with a total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration up to 4000 mg/L. Two solute transport models were constructed to evaluate future salinity change in the groundwater source. The first model conducted in 1991 produced a range of probable changes with a high, most probable (mid), and low range. Actual data confirm the low range of the model produced an accurate result (within 15%) and that the 4000 mg/L threshold would not be exceeded until beyond 2031. The second modeling effort conducted in 2014 suggested that the 4000 mg/L TDS threshold would be reached in 2018, which did not happen. The use of real data and regression analyses for all wells suggests that the 4000 mg/L TDS concentration will not be exceeded until after 2060. Once the TDS threshold is reached, the plant would require a process change to allow treatment of higher TDS water. The current analysis shows that plant process design modification would not be required for up to 40 years into the future. The standard conceptual model assuming predominantly upward recharge during pumping was accurate with the addition of an enhanced zone of leakage caused by a fracture zone or a fault. A key issue that contributed to the success of the facility was the use of groundwater solute transport modeling prior to the final design of the membrane process during plant expansions.

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Section: Comparison Of the Updated Model Projections To The Real Data...supporting

confidence: 70%

Impacts of Feedwater Quality Change on the Oldest Continuously Operated Brackish-Water Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant in the United States

Pearson

Hegy

Missimer

2021

Water

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“…The conceptual model used in creating the solute transport model at the city of Hialeah wellfield has been used successfully in numerous other long-term projections of water quality changes for BWRO system design in Florida [4,12,[14][15][16][17]. However, one system, the Collier County South wellfield, showed an over-prediction of salinity that required a modification of the standard model to add a downward component of freshwater [32]. The city of Clearwater facility has had extreme increases in the salinity of the feedwater, despite the creation of a pre-design solute transport model [12].…”

Section: Conceptual Model Of the Water Quality Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pumping-Induced Feed Water Quality Variation and Its Impacts on the Sustainable Operation of a Brackish Water Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant, City of Hialeah, Florida, USA

Kassis

Guo²,

Maliva

et al. 2023

Sustainability

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Brackish water reverse osmosis (BWRO) desalination of groundwater is believed to be a sustainable method of providing municipal utilities with a high-quality supply in regions where freshwater sources are stressed and not sustainable. A key aspect of water management is the ability to evaluate an aquifer containing brackish water to ascertain future pumping-induced water quality changes and their impacts on the facility operation and economics. The city of Hialeah, Florida, has operated a BWRO facility for the last 9 years. The facility has a maximum design capacity of about 88,000 m3/d but is currently operating at about 33,000 m3/d. The facility was designed to treat water with a TDS of up to 10,000 mg/L. A detailed hydrogeologic investigation, including groundwater solute-transport modeling, suggested that the salinity of the source water would remain under 10,000 mg/L of TDS during the 30-year life expectancy of the facility. However, after 9 years of operation, it was found that the rate of salinity increase was much higher than predicted (27.5%), at the low rate of 33,000 m3/d. If the faculty was operated at the maximum capacity, the ability of the plant to treat the source water might be between 5 and 10 years. The conceptual model used to guide the solute transport modeling was not accurate for this site because it did not incorporate the apparent enhanced leakance through the basal confining unit below the aquifer. The greater leakance was likely caused by undetected, irregularly distributed fracturing of the underlying confining dolostones. The facility will require a major redesign to upgrade the process to be able to treat seawater at a TDS significantly above 10,000 mg/L in the future, should that occur. While the change will be costly, with a high capital cost to change the process, increased energy consumption, and overall higher water treatment cost, it is still more sustainable and has less environmental impact compared to other alternatives (e.g., treating tidal sources of seawater). The use of electricity from nuclear or solar generation could mitigate the environmental impacts of higher power consumption.

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“…Potentially, brackish offshore groundwater could also be regarded as potential future water resource (Post et al 2013, Alsarayreh et al 2021, Arico et al 2021. That is why, additionally, the volumes of brackish offshore groundwater were also estimated using equation (1) above with OFG fraction representing volume of groundwater with concentrations lower than 10 TDS g l −1 .…”

Section: Ofg Volume Estimationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Offshore fresh groundwater in coastal unconsolidated sediment systems as a potential fresh water source in the 21st century

Zamrsky

Essink

Sutanudjaja

et al. 2021

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Coastal areas worldwide are often densely populated and host regional agricultural and industrial hubs. Strict water quality requirements for agricultural, industrial and domestic use are often not satisfied by surface waters in coastal areas and consequently lead to over-exploitation of local fresh groundwater resources. Additional pressure by both climate change and population growth further intensifies the upcoming water stress and raise the urgency to search for new fresh water sources. In recent years, offshore fresh groundwater reserves have been identified as such a potential water source. In this study, we quantify, for the first time, the global volume of offshore fresh groundwater in unconsolidated coastal aquifers and show that it is a viable option as additional fresh water source in coastal areas. Our results confirm previously reported widespread presence of offshore fresh groundwater along the global coastline. Furthermore, we find that these reserves are likely non-renewable as they were deposited during glacial periods when sea levels were substantially lower compared to current sea level. We estimate the total offshore fresh groundwater volume in unconsolidated coastal aquifers to be approximately 1.06 ± 0.2 million km³, which is roughly three times more than estimated previously and about 10% of all terrestrial fresh groundwater. With extensive active and inactive offshore oil pumping present in areas of large offshore fresh groundwater reserves, they could be considered for temporary fresh groundwater exploration as part of a transition to sustainable water use in coastal areas on the long run.

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Changes in Pumping-Induced Groundwater Quality Used to Supply a Large-Capacity Brackish-Water Desalination Facility, Collier County, Florida: A New Aquifer Conceptual Model

Cited by 3 publications

References 22 publications

Impacts of Feedwater Quality Change on the Oldest Continuously Operated Brackish-Water Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant in the United States

Impacts of Feedwater Quality Change on the Oldest Continuously Operated Brackish-Water Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant in the United States

Pumping-Induced Feed Water Quality Variation and Its Impacts on the Sustainable Operation of a Brackish Water Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant, City of Hialeah, Florida, USA

Offshore fresh groundwater in coastal unconsolidated sediment systems as a potential fresh water source in the 21st century

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