DRINKING WATER

ashland-water-intake AMERICAN And Partners Install Boltless Restrained Underwater Pipeline System In Ashland, Wisconsin

Beneath the waters of Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior in Ashland, Wisconsin, about 4,500 feet of 24-inch AMERICAN Flex-Ring Ductile Iron Pipe and a submerged timber crib intake structure were installed to ensure the city’s residents have quality drinking water for the next 100 years. The Ashland Water Intake Project began May 1, 2025, and is now complete.

DRINKING WATER CASE STUDIES AND WHITE PAPERS

  • Four Tips For A Successful PFAS Removal Pilot Study

    Follow these key steps to conduct a successful pilot study to help remain below their target contaminant limits and cost-effectively comply with regulations.

  • 7 Challenges Municipal Water Treatment Professionals Are Facing And How To Solve Them

    Solutions that offer instant, chemical-free disinfection, manage costs, handle high organic loads, and control emerging contaminants are defining the path forward for water facilities.

  • City Of Austin, Texas Installs A Total of 4,500 Pounds‐Per‐Day Of On‐ Site Hypochlorite Capacity Using the Microclor® OSHG System

    With 100 years of service history, Austin Water has seen enormous change in its 540 square miles of service area. Planning for the next 100 years has city and utility planners considering a diversity of sources, system resilience, and sustainability while being mindful of conservation goals. In the city’s newest water treatment plant, WTP4, Austin Water was able to combine those planning elements into a state‐of‐the‐art treatment plant. The plant, which is located on Lake Travis, is capable of treating 50 million gallons a day (MGD) with the ability to expand to 300 MGD.

  • 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.

  • Ultrasonic vs. Radar In The Water Industry

    In recent years, the debate about which technology is best suited for level monitoring and open channel monitoring (OCM) applications has taken some traction. There are those who argue that ultrasonic level technology has been uncontested as the standard for level and OCM applications in the water industry. The counter-argument is that radar technology is more effective because it is more robust and accurate than ultrasonic technology. 

  • Dewatering Never Sounded So Good: Noise Management At Metropolitan Utility Repair Sites

    When the jobsite is in an urban or metropolitan area  measures must be taken to try to minimize the perception of nuisance or harm. Utility contractors face this situation often when they are called to make repairs.

  • The Digital Utility - Potential Of Smart Water Metering

    Using the latest and greatest technology has become commonplace. We use it every day to stay informed and connected. Today, utilities are leveraging digital technology by transforming tasks that were once manual to digital.

  • Appreciating The Importance Of Resiliency

    As essential services, water and wastewater utilities face a lot of pressure to maintain continuity despite a variety of challenges — stormy weather, natural disasters, and even global pandemics. In-plant instrumentation, SCADA systems, and remote sensors all have their roles. But for more holistic views and higher-level analyses of performance patterns, an operational intelligence system can help to maximize resiliency.

  • Liquid Oxygen Supply For Ozone Generation

    Learn about a project to procure and fabricate large bore piping to reduce field installation. 

  • Finding A More Affordable Migration Path To Net Zero Leakage

    Whether decision-makers consider it ultimately attainable or not, there is something positive to be said about striving toward ‘net zero leakage’ in water distribution systems saddled with high non-revenue-water (NRW) losses. The key is taking affordable steps — like those described below — toward identifying and mitigating the most egregious water loss locations in a distribution system, based on readily accessible data.

DRINKING WATER APPLICATION NOTES

DRINKING WATER PRODUCTS

Every drop costs you money The estimated cost associated with produced water treatment in the United States is approximately $18B. The cost of cleaning produced water is 300 times greater than municipal waste water and 3,000 times greater than irrigation water.

The DR6000™ is the industry’s most advanced laboratory spectrophotometer for water testing. It offers high-speed wavelength scanning across the UV and Visible Spectrum, and comes with over 250 pre-programmed methods including the most common water and environmental testing methods used today. 

The J7000 Break Check Valve can be easily fitted to any Jones wet barrel hydrant.

The AquaDiamond® filter, a new horizontal configuration for the Cloth Media Filter, has been produced. It utilizes PA-13 pile cloth as its filter media.

The Smith & Loveless Duplex Gravity Filter (DGF) removes suspended solids and particles, improving effluent quality. The standard system is available in sizes to fit any application, providing up to 200 square feet (18.6 square meters) of effective filtration area per unit. Dual media filtration increases filtration depth and limits the head loss problems associated with single-media designs.

The AFC SEMPER® RPM featuring "Lift & Shift" capability is an ideal solution for pressure monitoring, transient analysis, fire flow testing, customer pressure concerns, and hydraulic model calibration. This flexible installation method allows the use of a smaller number of units to cover a large area with the advantage allowing utilities to move their RTU’s quickly and easily without having to reconfigure the application or retrofit existing assets. 

LATEST INSIGHTS ON DRINKING WATER

DRINKING WATER VIDEOS

RIP Kitty Hach-Darrow (October 20, 1922 - June 4, 2020), co-founder of Hach Company

As aquatic invasive species continue to overwhelm hydropower, industrial, and municipal systems worldwide, this webinar explores why traditional filtration and chemicals are falling short—and how a dual-barrier UV approach is emerging as a proven, chemical-free alternative backed by global field results.

How much water does it take to make a hamburger? How about to manufacture a car? Having experienced growing up with limited resources living in a refugee camp in India, Anil Ahuja is leading a movement to design sustainable cities and systems that protect the earth and the people who live on it.

The Eclipse i-Series model #9800i-GENESIS is the newest Intelligent Flushing & Monitoring Station Kupferle offers to maintain safe residual levels and remove DBPs from consumers' water. This permanently installed station incorporates a built-in chlorine analyzer to measure and record disinfectant residual levels based on a programmed sampling schedule.

See how SIWA MDM Event and Data Action Management (EDAM) helps utilities detect anomalies and identify service points with potential issues. With EDAM, utilities can define a set of conditions or rules that SIWA MDM meter data management uses to analyze data and events such as water leaks and missing reads.

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:

  1. Source water for a community’s drinking water supply
  2. Drinking water treatment of source water
  3. 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.