DRINKING WATER

Read this case study to discover how the City of Santa Barbara uses Hubbell’s comprehensive water utility solutions to enhance customer service.
DRINKING WATER CASE STUDIES AND WHITE PAPERS
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Ultrasonic And Radar Level Technologies: Bringing Clarity To The Water And Wastewater Market
If your head spins after reading how amazing one level measurement technology is in comparison to another, understanding the key attributes of these technologies and their applicability to specific processes may help to clear the waters.
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Pipeline Management Through Measurement
Pressure transients can be reduced through changes in pump operations and valve usage. Intelligent pipeline monitoring, combining pressure data with analytics, helps utilities prevent problems and educate operators and customers.
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High-Flux Polymeric Membrane For Industrial Water Separation
Water is essential to numerous industries such as chemical manufacturing, automotive production, oil and gas refinery and power generation, yet the increasing scarcity of this precious resource makes its recovery from these activities more critical than ever.
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Going Deep With Surge Analysis And Bubbling Up With Community Engagement
As a nonprofit membership-based organization, Davidson Water is entirely supported by the rates and fees paid by its member customers – no county taxes involved. Created over 50 years ago by enterprising businessmen who realized that this part of the popular Piedmont corridor of commerce and trade would not be able to host more business without reliable access to clean water, Davidson Water provides a stellar example of both water stewardship and a commitment to innovation.
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World's Largest 1,4-Dioxane Treatment Initiative
Groundwater on Long Island, New York, contains the contaminant 1,4-dioxane. Despite no federal regulation, local water providers and state authorities have taken action to address contamination, establishing a state-enforced maximum contaminant level.
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Retrofitting Water Systems With The Best Meters For The Job
Although not every water, wastewater, or industrial design engineer or operations manager is familiar with the advantages of the V-Cone differential-pressure (DP) meter design, they are certainly familiar with the problems it can solve. Here is a step-by-step description of how V-Cone meters with + 0.5 percent accuracy offer better alternatives in applications currently being failed by other metering technologies.
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A Legacy Of Clean Water
Helping to maintain clean water is part of the Whalen family history, a story that begins in the mid-1990s with a father’s fervent belief that his research could make a difference and his son’s intense desire to ensure it did.
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Evaluation Of Ceralite-A As An Alternative To Anthracite Filter Media
The Golden Heart WTP located in Fairbanks Alaska is a lime softened, ground water treatment plant with five filter basins, with a combined surface area of 1495 ft2 . Typical filter loading rates are in the 2.3 –to 3.1 gpm/ft2
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Future-Proof Your Water Meter Technology With AMI
Because you can’t track what you can’t measure, modern water solutions bridge the gap between the vision of secure water and the reality of existing infrastructure.
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Monitoring Chlorine Residuals For RO Membranes - ORP Versus Chlorine Analyzers
In processes where disinfection is required chlorine is the most common and economic disinfectant followed by sodium hypochlorite (liquid bleach). It is important to disinfect the RO feedwater to avoid fouling of the membranes which results in poor performance and frequent cleaning.
DRINKING WATER APPLICATION NOTES
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The 'First Line Of Defense' In Protecting Membrane Filters8/9/2019
Multi-element, self-cleaning pretreatment filters optimize membrane filter life and production while minimizing maintenance and downtime.
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Background And Summary Of Tests For The 2000PV Restraint4/13/2021
The 2000PV is a restraint for PVC pipe and the standardized mechanical joint. This product is the result of years of testing and evaluation and its performance has been proven by thousands of hours of proof tests, as well as third-party evaluations. This report describes the 2000PV through the 12" size.
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Panametrics Technology Helps Track Potable Water Leaks4/22/2022
Concerned about the volume of water leakages throughout their network, a Swedish water authority turned to Panametrics flowmeters to map their municipal water network -- enabling quick leak identification and fixes.
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Cloth Media Filtration Removes Coal Ash And Coal Fines At Power Plants1/15/2019
Coal-fired power plants generate coal fines and coal ash from a number of sources, including coal combustion residuals (CCR), particularly fly and bottom ash from coal furnaces, and coal pile runoff during rain events. In support of an industry-wide effort to reduce, improve, and remove coal ash ponds, a variety of technologies have been tested and employed. Read the full application note to learn more.
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Active Energy Control – Energy Reductions Of Up To 10% Above Standard Drives4/1/2017
Energy costs continue to increase. At the same time, there is increased pressure to reduce utility bills without sacrificing operations or comfort.
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LC-MS Analysis Of PFAS Compounds In EPA 533 After Supelclean™ ENVI-WAX SPE Cleanup8/29/2022
This application note demonstrates the extraction and subsequent analysis of 25 related analytes from water using Supelco SPE cartridges.
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How To Install A Submersible Pump In Discharge Tubes11/28/2012
In the fields of water and waste water technology, submersible pumps represent a viable economic and technical alternative to conventional, dry-installed pumps. In particular, they offer a number of handling advantages during maintenance and installation work.
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Simplify And Optimize Your Process With Level And Pump Control3/1/2022
Level controllers have evolved to meet today’s environmental challenges and industry demands. Learn how they support improved process management and, ultimately, a better bottom line.
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Determination Of Pesticide Residues In Tea4/10/2015
In 2012, Americans consumed well over 79 billion servings of tea, which is just over 3.60 billion gallons.
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Application Note: YSI Water Quality Monitoring Buoys Help Connecticut DOT Protect The Housatonic River12/27/2005When replacement of the Sikorski Bridge spanning the Housatonic River was authorized, Paul Corrente and the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CT-DOT) set about the design and development of a water quality monitoring program to monitor the contractor’s in-water activities to insure full protection of the river from perturbation
LATEST INSIGHTS ON DRINKING WATER
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The most common techniques for disposing of PFAS may no longer be good enough.
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Lessons in urban water management through water conservation, capture, and reuse.
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A decade of collaboration and toil creates a pipeline to enduring water security.
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Replacing lead pipes isn’t just about digging and swapping materials. It’s about solving for workforce shortages, incomplete data, and execution at scale. Without addressing these constraints head-on, communities risk failing to meet compliance deadlines and incurring rising costs.
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Most water utilities worldwide face significant challenges in reducing non-revenue water (NRW), frequently impeded by operational inefficiencies and resources shortage. Romania's largest public water company, RAJA SA, faced similar obstacles and embarked on a transformative initiative in the city of Constanța. In partnership with AGS Water Solutions, RAJA implemented a performance-based service contract (PBSC) for NRW management and adopted innovative digital tools to support the new integrated water meter management approach. This initiative offers valuable insights for utilities seeking to scale digitization and improve operational efficiency.
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Many public water system owners in the U.S. worked hard from 2021 to 2024 to comply with the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR). As of October 2024, in its current form, the rule is now known as the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI). You may know that the next compliance deadline is November 1, 2027. But what exactly is due at that time? How can you be sure you’re complying with the requirements?
ABOUT DRINKING WATER
In most developed countries, drinking water is regulated to ensure that it meets drinking water quality standards. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers these standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
Drinking water considerations can be divided into three core areas of concern:
- Source water for a community’s drinking water supply
- Drinking water treatment of source water
- Distribution of treated drinking water to consumers
Drinking Water Sources
Source water access is imperative to human survival. Sources may include groundwater from aquifers, surface water from rivers and streams and seawater through a desalination process. Direct or indirect water reuse is also growing in popularity in communities with limited access to sources of traditional surface or groundwater.
Source water scarcity is a growing concern as populations grow and move to warmer, less aqueous climates; climatic changes take place and industrial and agricultural processes compete with the public’s need for water. The scarcity of water supply and water conservation are major focuses of the American Water Works Association.
Drinking Water Treatment
Drinking Water Treatment involves the removal of pathogens and other contaminants from source water in order to make it safe for humans to consume. Treatment of public drinking water is mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. Common examples of contaminants that need to be treated and removed from water before it is considered potable are microorganisms, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals and radionuclides.
There are a variety of technologies and processes that can be used for contaminant removal and the removal of pathogens to decontaminate or treat water in a drinking water treatment plant before the clean water is pumped into the water distribution system for consumption.
The first stage in treating drinking water is often called pretreatment and involves screens to remove large debris and objects from the water supply. Aeration can also be used in the pretreatment phase. By mixing air and water, unwanted gases and minerals are removed and the water improves in color, taste and odor.
The second stage in the drinking water treatment process involves coagulation and flocculation. A coagulating agent is added to the water which causes suspended particles to stick together into clumps of material called floc. In sedimentation basins, the heavier floc separates from the water supply and sinks to form sludge, allowing the less turbid water to continue through the process.
During the filtration stage, smaller particles not removed by flocculation are removed from the treated water by running the water through a series of filters. Filter media can include sand, granulated carbon or manufactured membranes. Filtration using reverse osmosis membranes is a critical component of removing salt particles where desalination is being used to treat brackish water or seawater into drinking water.
Following filtration, the water is disinfected to kill or disable any microbes or viruses that could make the consumer sick. The most traditional disinfection method for treating drinking water uses chlorine or chloramines. However, new drinking water disinfection methods are constantly coming to market. Two disinfection methods that have been gaining traction use ozone and ultra-violet (UV) light to disinfect the water supply.
Drinking Water Distribution
Drinking water distribution involves the management of flow of the treated water to the consumer. By some estimates, up to 30% of treated water fails to reach the consumer. This water, often called non-revenue water, escapes from the distribution system through leaks in pipelines and joints, and in extreme cases through water main breaks.
A public water authority manages drinking water distribution through a network of pipes, pumps and valves and monitors that flow using flow, level and pressure measurement sensors and equipment.
Water meters and metering systems such as automatic meter reading (AMR) and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) allows a water utility to assess a consumer’s water use and charge them for the correct amount of water they have consumed.