DRINKING WATER
Is Monitoring Of Total Or Free Chlorine A Better Option For Dechlorination Control?
Accurate dechlorination control requires monitoring all residual oxidants that threaten membrane integrity. Total chlorine analysis provides the necessary precision at ultra-low levels, ensuring comprehensive protection against oxidative damage while maintaining reagent stability during intermittent system operations.
DRINKING WATER CASE STUDIES AND WHITE PAPERS
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![Update and Upgrade of Ozone Dissolution System at Southwest Water Treatment Plant_PIX]( "Update And Upgrade Of Ozone Dissolution System At Southwest Water Treatment Plant")
Update And Upgrade Of Ozone Dissolution System At Southwest Water Treatment PlantThe burden of the unavailability of replacement parts for the aging generators and the FBD basins' high maintenance motivated the Orlando Utilities Commission's Southwest Water Treatment Plant to update and upgrade the plant’s ozone system.
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![Comparing Benefits Of V-Cone® And Coriolis Meters]( "Comparing Benefits Of V-Cone® And Coriolis Meters")
Comparing Benefits Of V-Cone® And Coriolis MetersProper operation of water treatment processes depends on accurate flow measurements. Also, flow data is often required by regulatory agencies.
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![Distillery_iStock-635929140]( "Distillery Wastewater Byproducts Fuel Sustainability")
Distillery Wastewater Byproducts Fuel SustainabilityFor distilleries, high levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), nitrogen, total dissolved solids (TDS), and total suspended solids (TSS) put extra pressure on optimal biological treatment requirements. Here are some techniques that can help distillers put a little extra money in the bank while meeting the challenges of environmental discharge requirements.
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![0721_20_Xylem_sm]( "Hydroinformatics 101: Intro To Water Optimization And Efficiency")
Hydroinformatics 101: Intro To Water Optimization And EfficiencyHydroinformatics offers a fresh perspective that is enabling communities around the world to tackle age-old problems in new ways and with a bigger toolset.
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Creating Reusable Water From Municipal Sewage
Al Shamal is the capital city of the municipality of Madinat ash Shamal in Qatar. With the majority of the town's population not yet connected to a sewer network, there was an immediate need to provide a wastewater treatment plant to treat wastewater generated from the towns' population and small industries. Ashghal, the Public Works Authority of Qatar and its end user, decided to install a tanker discharge facility with a compact sewage treatment plant to produce effluent suitable for reuse in irrigation.
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![Ovarro_Enigma3HYQ_Anglian_Water_Leakage_Management_2]( "Leakage Management: Meeting The Challenge")
Leakage Management: Meeting The ChallengeAnglian Water has reduced leakage by 20% since 2010 and has committed to a further 23% reduction by 2025. Overwhelmingly, customers have told Anglian Water that leakage is a high priority and that they want to see it reduced to well below the Economic Level of Leakage (ELL).
The aim was to develop, own and utilize a system that enables cost-effective, smart, real-time leakage monitoring at an individual asset level for Anglian Water's entire network. The team was faced with a multitude of challenging conditions; the sites consisted of a large range of materials, including but not limited to Cast Iron, Ductile Iron, Asbestos Cement, MDPE, and PVC.
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The Murky Future Of Global Water Quality
Population growth, economic development, and climate change are placing increasing pressure on our planet’s water resources. Many studies, including one conducted by IFPRI and Veolia in 2011, depict a future world with elevated tensions due to growing demand for a limited supply of water.
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![water-stress]( "Shining A Light On Global Water Stress")
Shining A Light On Global Water StressThe word “unprecedented” is overused and often abused. Water stress, however — the situation in which the water resources in a region or country are insufficient for its needs — is today a major threat and we are in fact facing “unprecedented” challenges. Climate change is a big factor contributing to it, but it’s not the only factor. Without rapid changes in industrial water usage, it is predicted that within 10 years there will be a 40 percent global water deficit.
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![Kamstrup Leak Detection Feature Image]( "How To Get Acoustic Leak Detection For The Price Of An AMI Meter")
How To Get Acoustic Leak Detection For The Price Of An AMI MeterWhatever number a utility estimates as its non-revenue-water (NRW) loss rate — 20 percent, 30 percent, or more — the willingness to address it is often inversely proportional to the cost of doing so. Now, leak detection options that include acoustic monitoring as a built-in feature of residential water meter replacement are cutting the costs and complexity of identifying NRW losses and recapturing lost revenues.
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![rangeline]( "Put A 'Stop' To Water-Main-Repair Shutdowns And Boil-Water Notices")
Put A 'Stop' To Water-Main-Repair Shutdowns And Boil-Water NoticesFor most water or wastewater system operators, engineers, and repair crews, the only thing worse than facing a 24”-main emergency repair is facing an even larger one. To those who have never performed an emergency line stop and bypass, the idea of completing repairs with no service outage, no long-term shutdown, and no ‘boil water’ notice is almost beyond belief. To those who have, it’s a sigh of relief.
DRINKING WATER APPLICATION NOTES
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Operations And LRV Calculations At Southwest Pipeline Project Drinking Water Treatment Facility4/14/2016
This presentation will discuss the operation of a 4 MGD pressurized two-stage Ultrafiltration (UF) plant over a 14 month period at the Oliver-Mercer-North Dunn (OMND) Drinking Water Treatment Facility, North Dakota.
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Reduce Or Eliminate Water Hammer With Valve Positioners5/19/2022
Water hammer, which can occur in just about any pumping system and even steam systems, can lead to pipe breakage, equipment damage or even total system failure. Addressing water hammer at the source is the savviest and most cost-effective way to handle the issue.
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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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A New Way Of Designing With Reverse Osmosis Membranes7/23/2015
Process design in water treatment is historically confined to proprietary or user-defined spreadsheets on a unit operation basis, with users manually adding results from each unit process upstream into the next operation.
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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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Application Note: YSI Real-Time Water Quality Monitoring And The IPSWATCH-EMPACT Program12/28/2005The Ipswich and Parker Rivers watersheds lie only a short distance north of Boston, MA. The first settlements in these watersheds began in the early 1600s. Since that time, residents have relied heavily on the natural resources of the Parker and Ipswich Rivers, their coastal estuaries and Plum Island Sound, which is known as the Great Marsh. This ecosystem has been designated and protected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC).
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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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Secret To Disinfection Monitoring For High Chlorine Residual Wastewater Applications8/2/2015
Some wastewater applications require chlorine residuals greater than can be effectively monitored using DPD due to the oxidation of the Wurster dye to a colorless Imine. Such applications include industrial wastewater processes that inherently have a high chlorine demand thereby requiring a more robust monitoring method.
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Application Note: Turbidity Monitoring In Drinking Water Treatment Plants8/30/2005
Turbidity, or the relative clarity of a liquid (in this case drinking water), is caused by the presence of microscopic particles such as clay, silt, or other fine undissolved matter
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Application Note: Continuous Monitoring Of Drinking Water Provides Assurance Of Safety9/28/2005A water utility in Ohio wanted to learn more about the variability of water quality parameters such as pH, ORP, turbidity, and chlorine. Previously, most of these parameters had been measured by spot sampling protocols with only a few measurements during a daily period. In order to more accurately assess the water variability, the utility used a YSI 6920DW Drinking Water Multiprobe
DRINKING WATER PRODUCTS
The Series NXT3000 High Capacity Gas Feed System is a family of vacuum-operated, solution-feed, gas dispensing components including a vacuum regulator, meter assembly and ejector to meet customer needs for feeding chlorine, sulfur dioxide, ammonia or carbon dioxide gas. The Series NXT3000 is a versatile, high quality system which operates at sonic conditions eliminating the need for differential pressure regulation across the rate control valve.
The TrojanUVFlex is designed with features to make installation and operation simpler, faster, and more cost-effective than ever before. Built on the proven TrojanUV Solo Lamp Technology platform, TrojanUVFlex allows for energy-efficient high-intensity delivery of UV light in an extremely compact footprint.
The Proline Promag W 400 electromagnetic flowmeter is a versatile standard flowmeter for the water and wastewater industry.
The AquaDrum® Pressure Series cloth media filter is a pressurized vessel consisting of a perforated, vertically oriented drum utilizing OptiFiber® pile cloth filtration media.
Complete more tests on site, get the results you need faster, allowing you to visit more sites in each shift. Perform up to four colorimetric and two probe-based measurements in parallel 75% faster than with other methods.
As the latest addition to Hydra-Stop’s award-winning Insta-Valve family of solutions, customers with 20- and 24-inch pipes can now benefit from the only insertable gate valve with the superior performance and reliability you would expect from the Insta-Valve name.
LATEST INSIGHTS ON DRINKING WATER
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![snowystream-Getty-521971897]( "Winter's Alarmingly Low Snowpack Offers A Glimpse Of The Changing Rhythm Of Water In The Western U.S.")
The April 1 snowpack measurement has long been the single most important number in western water management, considered a strong proxy for how much water the mountains are holding in reserve. But in 2026, that savings account has been woefully deficient.
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![ColoradoRiverDam_Getty-1280300802]( "Why Colorado River Negotiations Stalled, And How They Could Resume With The Possibility Of Agreement")
Why Colorado River Negotiations Stalled, And How They Could Resume With The Possibility Of AgreementThe five most common sources of conflict between people are values, data, relationships, interests, and structure. The current Colorado River negotiations include all five. -
![Water droplets, PFAS, Forever chemical water contamination-GettyImages-2173433890]( "Designing Resilient PFAS Treatment Strategies For Water Agencies")
Water agencies across the U.S. are facing a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that poses a conundrum: Should they take a cautious or aggressive approach to treating PFAS contamination in their water system?
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![Oil spill clean up-GettyImages-1369921282]( "The Future Of In Situ Chemical Oxidation For Targeted Solvent Destruction")
The U.S. EPA’s 2026 trichloroethylene (TCE) compliance deadlines are now forcing a concrete shift toward source-zone destruction. In situ chemical oxidation (ISCO), sequenced with enhanced bioremediation, is proving to be the most credible path to groundwater contaminant rebound mitigation.
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![GettyImages-1365695094 water in hands]( "How Generative Design Can Help UK Utilities Justify PR29 Investment Cases")
Generative design strengthens PR29 investment cases by enabling rigorous optioneering, accurate cost estimates, and clear outcome alignment, helping water companies meet rising regulatory expectations.
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![money, dollars down the drain-GettyImages-157193934]( "Critical Infrastructure Fails The Way It's Funded")
Our infrastructure systems have operated in managed deterioration for decades. And not surprisingly, once they deteriorate badly enough and cross over into active failure, all cost discipline disappears.
DRINKING WATER VIDEOS
Appearing on The Weather Channel's "Wake Up With Al" morning show, water expert Dan Theobald puts drinking water to the test by measuring total dissolved solids (TDS) in tap water samples from Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Jersey, as well as bottled water samples.
Stanford Earth’s Rosemary Knight recently spearheaded a project to map underground freshwater resources and forecast the intrusion of saltwater into aquifers beneath the California coastal town of Marina.
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.