Evaluating Membrane Options for Aquifer Recharge in Southeast Florida

Comparing Contaminant Removal Costs for Aquifer Recharge with Wastewater with Water Supply Benefits

“…Finally, the most capital intensive option is the residential reuse option which requires installation of reclaimed water (purple piping) system throughout the service area. This analysis confirms the utility perspective that the construction costs for residential reuse are much higher than costs for other options (Bloetscher et al ., ).…”

“…Two RO systems were used: a two‐stage 2:1 array, three membranes per vessel Osmonics RO system (Minnetonka, Minnesota) with a two‐hp, 240‐volt, three‐phase RO pump rated for a flow of six gpm at 250 psi; concentrate and pump discharge control valves; pressure gauges; flow meters; and sampling ports for water quality monitoring and an RO pilot plant owned by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) that consists of RO Skid assembly for an additional two‐stage 1:1 array with 4‐in.‐diameter single‐element pressure vessel for a nominal permeate production rate of 1.5 gpm at 75% recovery with recycle as a third stage system. The initial process pretreatment consisted of no chemical pretreatment and one single‐element cartridge filter housing for 5‐μ ultrafiltration (Bloetscher et al ., ). A dispersant was identified as necessary pretreatment.…”

“…Contaminants of emerging concerns (CECs) were first discovered in wastewaters in the United States (U.S.) in the 1960s and 1970s (Stumm‐Zollinger and Fair, ; Tabak and Bunch, ; Garrison et al ., ; Hignite and Azarnoff, ), but the issue gained little attention until CEC occurrence in wastewater was linked to impacts on fish living near outfalls in Europe (Gimeno et al ., ; Arcand‐Hoy et al ., ; Kramer et al ., ; Ternes, , ; Ternes et al ., , b), and found pervasively in rivers and streams throughout the U.S. (Koplin et al ., ; Focazio et al ., ). Further studies determined a direct correlation between effluent discharges and receiving water concentrations of pharmaceuticals (Purdom et al ., ; Desbrow et al ., ; McQuillan et al ., ; Metcalfe et al ., ; Johnson et al ., ; Bloetscher and Plummer, ; Bloetscher et al ., ). Mysore et al .…”

Net-zero water management: achieving energy-positive municipal water supply

“…26 In that light, field and pilot tests of commercial equipment available for filtration, reverse osmosis, UV-hydrogen peroxide, and other treatment processes have demonstrated that quality equipment can produce high quality potable water from wastewater. 27,28 Moreover, numerous indirect potable reuse (IPR) projects, including the long-term indirect potable reuse effort by the Orange County Water District 29 and several direct potable reuse programs, have confirmed that product water can exceed drinking water standards (in fact, as mentioned, RO product water is so devoid of contaminants as to be corrosive). In addition, the long-term reliability of DPR without RO has been demonstrated at the Windhoek plant.…”