Water Online

June 2012

Water Online the Magazine gives Water & Wastewater Engineers and end-users a venue to find project solutions and source valuable product information. We aim to educate the engineering and operations community on important issues and trends.

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Feature The demographic trends are clear; the regulations are pointing the way, and the technology is available. specific water quality parameters. Those parameters can range from phosphorus to coliform bacteria to temperature — anything that can prevent a body of water from being drinkable, swimmable, or fishable. In the TMDL process, stakeholders and regulators study the water body to determine the source of the particular contaminants. Then, they apportion the reduction among all the contributors. Farmers may have to adopt certain management practices and plant vegetative buffer strips outside of town, while the local wastewater treatment plant may need to add a processing step, area factories must treat their cooling water before discharge, and a corporate park on the edge of the city has to treat all the runoff from its roofs and parking lots. It's politically fraught and far- reaching, and can push wastewater treatment to the level of a single facility or subdivision. Plan to see TMDLs increase demand for rainwater harvesting systems (better to treat and use the water than pay to treat and just discharge it), stormwater treatment technology, and facility-scale wastewater treatment. Protecting Private Health Municipal water treatment systems in the United States have set a global standard for protecting the public health through effective disinfection. But, as private water treatment systems — for housing subdivisions, vast corporate parks, and mega-buildings — come into prominence to pick up where municipal systems can't keep up, non-municipal water treatment plants will have to live up to the same high expectations. There is no room or tolerance in society for outbreaks of waterborne pathogens such as Legionella or Cryptosporidium. Even where municipal drinking water is available, point-of-entry and point-of-use filtration systems are likely to become more popular. Hospitals and elderly care facilities are on high alert against waterborne disease, as are a growing number of hotels and high-rises. Ironically, the number of faucets behind which water can stagnate, and anti-scalding codes or guidelines that maintain water at temperatures below the Legionella-killing temperatures of 135 degrees F, can dramatically increase the likelihood of a buildup 10 Water Online The Magazine, Cleanwater Edition ■ wateronline.com of deadly bacteria. Crumbling delivery systems only contribute to the problem. On-site disinfection will be critical in those situations. Even in non-potable water systems, anti- bacterial programs are vital — remember that the first documented outbreak of Legionnaire's disease, and many that followed, were spread by cooling water, not drinking water. Technology Creates Opportunities Technologies that deliver high efficiency with a small footprint will lead the charge to decentralization. Membrane systems will play a leading role in both clean water and wastewater applications, and integrated membrane/pre-filtration systems will be at the center of it all. Managing BOD and COD will gain ground. Non-chemical and on-site disinfection systems, such as UV and mixed oxidant generation technologies, will grow as planners seek ways to treat water in small, local facilities without the cost and risks of stashing chemicals all over the cities. Pre-treatment systems will make polishing steps more efficient. Energy efficiency will prove to be a key benefit to smaller decentralized water treatment systems. Those projects can be tailored to treat water based on influent quality and the intended use of the water. This resource-efficient approach is difficult at best to manage on a city-wide basis, but can easily be tailored to an individual site or subdivision. In all, the big opportunities in the water treatment business may turn out to come in small packages. The water industry is poised to help growing cities serve their expanding populations and aid industry in meeting stricter rules and expectations for water and wastewater use while residents of high-rises and housing subdivisions maintain their access to safe, available water supplies. The demographic trends are clear, the regulations are pointing the way, and the technology is available. It's time to think big by thinking small. Jim Lauria is a water technology executive with a bachelor of chemical engineering degree from Manhattan College. He has more than 20 years of global experience as a senior execu- tive in the water treatment industry. Lauria is a marketing executive, engineer, writer, blog- ger, and water evangelist. He is a frequent speaker at water industry conferences and has published more than 50 technical articles in water trade publications. He can be contacted at (805) 410-2674 or jimlauria@teamchem.com.

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