DRINKING WATER
City Undergoing Water System Overhaul Used AVT EZ Valve To Keep The Water Flowing
Modernize aging water infrastructure without service interruptions. By installing strategic control points on live lines, municipalities can perform vital repairs and upgrades while maintaining full pressure and fire protection for the entire community.
DRINKING WATER CASE STUDIES AND WHITE PAPERS
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Case Study: Singapore Utility Eliminates Harmful Transients Improving System Reliability And Prolonging The Asset Life
Water scarcity has long prompted water self-sufficiency in Singapore, the third most densely populated country in the world, with 5.6 million residents crowded into just over 275 square miles.
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Advancing The Potential For Stormwater Reuse: Investigation Of Water Quality And Treatment
Managing stormwater runoff is a complex environmental challenge for communities across the country. As stormwater runoff flows into nearby waterways, it can collect various pollutants including trash, chemicals, oils, and dirt, which can lead to environmental and public health impacts.
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AFC SEMPER RPM Used To Study New Fairfield, California Transmission Line
In March 2021, the city of Fairfield, California’s Water Division was tasked with commissioning a new 36-inch Cross Town Transmission Line (CTTL). The CTTL will enhance the already robust distribution system and better serve the water needs of the Water Division’s 33,000 customers. This new CTTL, however, will change the dynamics of the city’s current distribution system. To better understand how the new CTTL would affect operations, the AMERICAN Flow Control SEMPER Remote Pressure Monitor (RPM) was deployed to strategic points throughout the system.
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Drinking Water Disinfection At Lunenberg, Massachusetts, USA Local Community
In this case study, read how the Lunenburg Water District improved their water disinfection system with the installation of an Atlantium RZ300-11 HOD UV system. The system effectively disinfects water, meets future demands, and eliminates chlorine taste and odor.
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SPRWS Upgrades To Corrosion-Resistant Zinc-Coated Ductile Iron Water Main
It is no secret that a large portion of the drinking water infrastructure in the United States is near or past its intended design life. Our nation’s water infrastructure needs an overhaul, and the cost of doing so is climbing rapidly. The American Society of Civil Engineering’s 2017 Infrastructure Report Card graded the nation’s drinking water infrastructure a D. According to the American Water Works Association, an estimated $1 trillion is necessary to maintain and expand drinking water service to meet demands over the next 25 years.
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Tennessee Town Checks For Water Loss In More Than 8,000 Feet Of Pipe
Learn how Electro Scan helped a rural Tennessee town check for water loss and to find the sources of its non-revenue water (NRW).
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Wastewater Plant In Como, Italy, Upgrades To De Nora Ozone For Significant Savings
The Lariana Depur wastewater treatment plant in Fino Mornasco, Italy, treats wastewater from multiple textile manufacturers in the Como region, known as the heart of the textile industry. Since 1994, ozone has been used effectively as a polisher to remove the dark blue-purple color — the result of the dyes used in the textile dyeing and printing process — from the water.
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PFAS Beyond Removal: 7 Often-Overlooked Factors
While performance and cost matter, there are a range of other factors that can have a substantial impact on the overall viability and success of a solution.
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PFAS Filtration: Designing For Smaller OPEX And Footprint
Keys to bring down the cost of PFAS treatment for operations with limited resources — or any operation using media filtration.
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Integrating Multiple Strategies To Optimize Water Use And Minimize Losses
This white paper will explore a three-pronged approach to handling non-revenue water, helping utilities to manage costs and maintain a healthy water delivery ecosystem.
DRINKING WATER APPLICATION NOTES
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Take Control Of Your Water Distribution Network With Digitalization And Remote Monitoring5/19/2022
Any process plant constantly generates a high volume of status data. Today, this data can be extracted from the plant, stored, analyzed, and prepared to meet operator needs and lower marginal costs.
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How To Read An Encoder9/13/2013
The HR-E LCD encoder has a 9-digit Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) to show consumption, flow and alarm information. The display automatically toggles between 9-digit and 6-digit consumption, rate of flow and meter model.
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Determination Of EN15662:2008 - Determination Of Pesticide Residue In Food Of Plant Origin, By An Automated QuEChERS Solution9/24/2014
Pesticide residue laboratories are required to undertake analyses of an ever increasing number of samples. The analyses typically involve use of multi-residue methods (both GC-MS and LC-MS) to test for over 500 pesticide residues.
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Industry-Specific Applications For UV Technology6/17/2024
In Microelectronics, Aquafine UV systems provide a synergistic approach towards the reduction of trace organics and microbial contamination for ultrapure water.
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Free Chlorine Measurement In Drinking Water Treatment12/21/2005
Before water can be used as a safe and reliable source for drinking water, it must be properly treated. Since water is a universal solvent, it comes in contact with several different pathogens, some of which are potentially lethal, and inactivation is accomplished through chemical disinfection and mechanical filtration treatment. This treatment consists of coarse filtration to remove large objects and pre-treatment which includes disinfection using chlorine or ozone
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The Basics: ORP and Free Chlorine Monitoring5/13/2014
Oxidation Reduction Potential or Redox is the activity or strength of oxidizers and reducers in relation to their concentration. Oxidizers accept electrons, reducers lose electrons. Examples of oxidizers are: chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, bromine, ozone, and chlorine dioxide. Examples of reducers are sodium sulfite, sodium bisulfate and hydrogen sulfide. Like acidity and alkalinity, the increase of one is at the expense of the other.
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Waterworks Joints 10110/30/2025
There are many different joints that can be found on waterworks pipeline components. This paper focuses on the three most common joints.
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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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Solution For Algae Blooms12/17/2015
Harmsco® Filtration Products is pleased to offer a solution to the ever increasing blue-algae blooms in water sources. A multi-barrier approach is necessary to physically remove intact (algae and cyanobacteria) before they rupture in the treatment process and then remove extracellular cyanobacteria through adsorption.
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LC-MS Analysis Of 33 PFAS Compounds In 5 Minutes11/4/2021
In response to environmental testing demands for faster LC-MS analyses, the new Ascentis® Express PFAS HPLC and delay columns allow the highly efficient separation of 33 PFAS compounds in 5 minutes with reduced background contamination.
LATEST INSIGHTS ON DRINKING WATER
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Currently, water infrastructure is outdated and fragile, prone to breakages and leaks. Reactive approaches to water infrastructure are only implemented after an incident and are more expensive than simple maintenance fixes. Geotechnical Internet of Things (IoT) devices enable water and wastewater industry professionals to identify and address issues before they escalate into catastrophic events.
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A new study linking certain groundwater sources to higher Parkinson’s risk underscores a broader question for the water sector: how environmental exposures in drinking water may influence long-term health.
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The growing demand for water across a variety of sectors combined with the increasingly understood complexity of emerging contaminants is creating a dynamic marketplace for filtration media. The goal of selecting the right filtration media is not to meet minimum standards but to achieve the right balance of performance, durability, and operational simplicity to ensure long-term compliance and cost-effective operation.
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Emerging state water reuse regulations are driving adoption of ozone and advanced oxidation, requiring flexible, high-performance systems to meet pathogen, trace organic, and DBP control objectives.
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EPA’s proposed perchlorate regulation challenges utilities to integrate advanced oxidation and separation technologies, enabling reliable removal, regulatory compliance, and flexible treatment for emerging contaminants.
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Ozone system performance hinges on reactor design, not generator size. Efficient mass transfer, hydraulic integrity, and contact time ensure consistent oxidation, reduced energy use, and reliable treatment results.
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.