City of Tallahassee’s Underground Utilities
Tallahassee, Florida
Implementing an Environmental Management System program and achieving ISO 14001:2004 certification is a significant goal. Once achieved it becomes a milestone in the ongoing continual improvement management structure. This case study focuses on the EMS program in the City of Tallahassee’s Wastewater Treatment before and after certification, and how it provides the basic structure for future improvement programs. EMS program provides the basis for Utility Management. It does not end with achieving ISO 14001:2004 certification. It takes effort to maintain the program, but the benefits achieved far out weigh the efforts required. As a management system, it can help provide the structure needed to support management through reorganizations and maintain effectiveness during other major changes, such as the AWT project described herein. EMS is also the basis for integrating other Utility Management programs and makes them easier to implement. Past, Present and Future EMS provides the basis for continual improvement. Source: WEFTEC 2009 Proceedings
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Posted: August 27th, 2010 | Filed under: 50k-100k, Waste Water Treatment | Tags: Cost Savings, Environmental Impact, Maximize Sustainability | No Comments »
United Utilities
United Kingdom
This paper will describe the results achieved by applying a Model Predictive Control (MPC) system to an Activated Sludge Plant (ASP) in the UK, with the objective of reducing energy consumption, whilst maintaining compliance within permitted environmental standards. Installation of the MPC system was initially an R&D project to assess if the suppliers performance expectations were valid. The successful outcome of the trial allowed the project to move to a permanent installation assessing the benefits over a longer period. During the R&D Phase the system demonstrated a high availability with an average of 20% energy reduction and peaks of 40% energy reduction when compared to conventional control. To date the system has reliably demonstrated energy savings and offers the potential to contribute significantly to United Utilities objective to reduce its Carbon emissions by 8% by 2012 if the benefits are replicated across the companies asset base of large ASP’s. Source: WEFTEC 2009 Proceedings
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Posted: August 27th, 2010 | Filed under: 50k-100k, Electric, Sanitary Sewer, Stormwater, Waste Water Treatment, Water Treatment | Tags: Cost Savings, Energy Savings, Environmental Impact, Reduced Carbon Footprint | No Comments »
Hanover Park WRP
Hanover Park, Illinois
There is considerable interest by utilities to establish carbon footprints of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with respect to greenhouse gas emissions, energy usage, energy production, and carbon credits for wastewater treatment. The methodologies and methods are at an early stage and have a great deal of uncertainty and variability. In this paper, a systematic and summary methodology to determine the carbon footprint of a WWTP including at operating, construction, process sinks and emitters’ levels has been presented. The paper also presents a case study based on this systematic summary methodology to illustrate the tools used. Source: WEFTEC 2009 Proceedings
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Posted: August 27th, 2010 | Filed under: 50k-100k, Waste Water Treatment | Tags: Environmental Impact, Plant Sustainability, Reduce Carbon Footprint, Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions | No Comments »
Parkway WWTP and Henrico County WRF
Laurel, Maryland and Richmond, Virginia
Nitrogen removal to increasingly strict discharge standards requires, in many cases, the use of supplemental carbon (methanol, glycerol, acetate, sugar water, etc). The supplemental carbon provides the driving force for further biological denitrification and is typically applied as a polishing treatment such as to a post anoxic zone or a tertiary denitrification filter. The practical use of supplemental carbons has attracted substantial attention from both process optimization and cost minimization perspectives. This paper presents the operational experiences gained with the secondary and indirect impacts of supplemental carbon addition to BNR/ENR treatment facilities at the Parkway WWTP, located in Laurel, Maryland, and at the Henrico County WRF, located in Richmond, Virginia. The focus of the paper deals with the sometimes unexpected beneficial secondary effects of supplemental carbon addition to post anoxic zones in the BNR/ENR treatment processes. This paper has demonstrated secondary impacts from supplemental carbon addition for nitrogen removal. The benefits demonstrated included improved biological phosphorus removal, improved anoxic zone performance, increased biosynthesis for P and N removal, lower residual DO in the internal recycle, and improved utilization of influent rbCOD. Additionally various ways of calculating by the CODadded/Nremoved ratio was developed using effluent TN with and without supplemental carbon. The impact of lower NOx-N load in the RAS when the pre-anoxic zone is not fully utilized was shown to be a significant factor in the resulting CODadded/Nremoved ratio. These impacts illustrate the importance of considering the whole system response rather than an isolated portion of a reactor when evaluating supplemental carbon. Source: WEFTEC 2009 Proceedings
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Posted: August 27th, 2010 | Filed under: 50k-100k, Waste Water Treatment | Tags: Environmental Impact, Improved Anoxic Zone Performance, Lower Residual DO, Nitrogen Removal, Phosphorus Removal | No Comments »
City of Appleton
Appleton, Wisconsin
The Conkey Pond and Northland Creek channel naturalization and floodplain lowering projects consist of a wet stormwater detention pond and naturalization of 286.5 meters (940 feet) of navigable stream in an industrial area in the City of Appleton, WI. Sustainable features include extensive use of natural materials and vegetation that reduce maintenance costs, improves water quality, add biodiversity and enhances habitat and aesthetics. These two facilities reduce downstream flood stages by about 0.82 meters (2.7 feet), and reduce TSS loadings within the city by 27 tonnes/year (30 tons/yr), which is about 11 percent of the remaining citywide TSS removal goal. Additional benefits include naturalization of a concrete lined channel, and the creation of wetlands in shallow depressional areas within the newly created floodplain. Source: WEFTEC 2009 Proceedings
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Posted: August 27th, 2010 | Filed under: 50k-100k, Sanitary Sewer, Stormwater | Tags: Environmental Impact, Improved Water Quality, Reduced Downstream Flood Stages, Reduced Maintenance Costs, Reduced TSS Loading, Stormwater Sustainability | No Comments »
City of Quincy
Quincy, Massachusetts
Facing a $4 million combined account deficit in its water and sewer departments, the City of Quincy, Massachusetts performed an end-to-end audit of all systems, procedures, and personnel assignments from financial, managerial, organizational, and technical standpoints. The audits started with the review of the master water meters receiving water from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and ended with a revised abatement policy. Quincy executed a programmatic approach to modifying the manner in which it conducted business as sewer and water service providers, and increased the level of service to their customers; streamlined formerly cumbersome meter reading, data entry, and billing processes; and reduced its unaccounted-for water percentage and peak I/I flows. As a result, Quincy erased the projected deficit in one fiscal year, anticipating a surplus of $1 million. This situation is very common in municipalities across the country. Time constraints and budgetary concerns rarely allow for an overhaul of systems and processes. In this way, issues that may seem small when they first appear are allowed to snowball and become systemic problems across many of the utilities functions. The results achieved by Quincy in performing this audit and implementing changes based on the findings demonstrate the power of investing in comprehensive review of these processes and using a proactive and programmatic approach to bringing success to the municipally run utility. Source: WEFTEC 2009 Proceedings
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Posted: July 6th, 2010 | Filed under: 50k-100k, Sanitary Sewer, Stormwater, Waste Water Treatment, Water Treatment | Tags: Cost Savings, Optimizing Organization | No Comments »
Abington WWTP
Abington, Pennsylvania
As permit requirements for effluent quality at wastewater treatment plants continue to become more stringent, intelligent control systems are needed to ensure optimal performance of the secondary treatment process. Such a control system was installed at Abington Wastewater Treatment Plant in southeastern Pennsylvania in 2005. Since that time, the control system has been optimizing dissolved oxygen set-points based on real-time loading with the goal of minimizing aeration requirements and maximizing process reliability. In 2009, after a plant upgrade, internal recycle optimization was added to the system. The benefits of this system have been a 5.5% reduction in aeration requirements, consistently meeting effluent ammonia goals, and optimal use of the anoxic volume for denitrification. Long term performance data of the upgraded system will be available once sufficient time has passed to fully evaluate the system. Source: WEFTEC Proceedings 2009
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Posted: June 25th, 2010 | Filed under: 50k-100k, Waste Water Treatment | Tags: Innovative Technology, Plant Optimization, Reduced Aeration Use | No Comments »