Increased treatment processes apparently haven’t been enough to curb levels of a potentially dangerous contaminant in a North Carolina water supply.
The presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water is creating concern among utilities, regulators, and consumers around the country. With little clear direction from federal lawmakers, some local agencies are stepping up to tackle the issue themselves.
Thanks to a manufacturing plant formerly operated in part by the U.S. Navy, a toxic plume is now approaching drinking water wells in Long Island. Fighting the problem will require a new water treatment facility costing millions of dollars.
The first blood tests results were released since water contamination in the Philadelphia suburbs came to light, and they provide a glimpse at potential health effects for residents.
In the Louisiana community of Enterprise, tap water is so unappealing that one woman drives 20 miles each way to do her laundry in another town, according to CNN.
Irrigation water used by farmers appears to be making people sick.
In 2007, White House Utility District (WHUD), a water utility serving approximately 90,000 consumers and businesses in Tennessee, faced a dilemma: how to meet a projected growing demand for water within the budget and capital constraints faced by municipal and mid-sized utilities everywhere.
Mass market access to the internet through a combination of hardwired, Wi-Fi, or cellular communications channels has conditioned many people to think that “a network is a network is a network.” When it comes to water utilities, however, the nature of the application environments and requirements dictate a closer look at how to satisfy the specific requirements most efficiently. Here are 14 checkpoints to consider before selecting a new network option or revamping an old one.
Mapping the assets of a water treatment, water distribution, or wastewater collection and treatment system is just the means to an end. Maximizing value from that effort requires systematic planning and a healthy curiosity for looking into patterns of activity. Here are some considerations for turning raw asset data into more valuable benchmarks for better decision-making across multiple aspects of water operations.
Potable reuse of wastewater has gone by many different names, some of them unflattering, like “toilet to tap.” Despite the clear benefits of water reuse, this so-called “ick factor” has slowed the adoption of technology that can transform wastewater into drinking water.
Debate about regulating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances is heating up across the country as the extent of known contamination continues to grow at an alarming rate. Also known as PFAS, this large group of toxic fluorinated compounds was used widely in industrial and consumer applications. Progressive water utilities are trying to quickly get a handle on the problem to better protect their customers from even further exposure.
Wastewater service charges vary considerably across EPA regions and States. That’s one of the key findings from the National Association of Clean Water Agencies’ (NACWA) Cost of Clean Water Index. If you live in Montana, Wyoming or the Dakotas (EPA Region 8), your average service charge of $261 a year is considerably less than the $884 your fellow Americans up in New England (EPA Region 1) are paying. As you can imagine, much of the difference is to do with population size and geography.
Handling process byproducts has always been a concern for ethylene producers. When it comes to wastewater treatment, spent caustic has always been the most challenging waste. In water-stressed locations, treating toxic components is not the only factor in achieving wastewater treatment and water recycling goals affordably.
Water and wastewater utilities must monitor numerous aspects of their systems on a continuous basis. Various instruments are used to measure these processes, producing volumes of data every day. Endress+Hauser is a leading supplier of products and services for process measurement and automation. Water Online spoke with three of Endress+Hauser's experts to find out how data loggers and managers can save costs while providing effective data management.
Study helps further understand the current processes related to reconciling payments at research sites, the level of satisfaction at research sites around receivables, as well as the impact that reconciling payments from sponsors / CROs has on the site’s ability to conduct a clinical trial.
For decades, wastewater management has been a growing problem for the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR), a problem that regional governments have long understood as a threat to the economy, the environment, and to public health. In the Caribbean, most wastewater from cities, industry, and agriculture pours directly into surface water or into the sea completely untreated, degrading residents’ quality of life, as well as the region’s biodiversity, pristine blue waters, and reefs, which are the lifeblood of the vital tourism industry.
Almost 30 years ago, Calgon Carbon introduced one of the first advanced ultraviolet (UV) oxidation processes to remediate contaminated groundwater. Then soon after, Calgon Carbon became the first company to adapt the technology to cost-effectively inactivate pathogens in surface water. These breakthroughs have established Calgon Carbon as a world leader in the use of UV technology for disinfection and oxidation to treat drinking water, wastewater, groundwater, process water and ballast water.
For both disinfection and TOC-reduction applications, NeoTech Aqua Solutions’ patented ReFleX™ UV chamber technology represents the state-of-the-art in high-efficiency UV systems by reflecting over 99% of the UV we generate back into the water.
The NeoTech Aqua Disinfection Series is specially designed to disinfect water and is an essential component in advanced oxidation processes.
NeoTech Aqua Solutions’ Patriot Series utilizes D438 chamber technology in a stacked and manifolded configuration to support larger flow volumes. By integrating NeoTech Aqua’s patented ReFleX chamber technology, Patriot systems provide the most efficient and versatile UV water treatment equipment available for large volume users. Further, when configured as an n+1 design, the NeoTech Aqua’s Patriot systems meet most redundancy requirements.
NeoTech Aqua Solutions provides the most efficient and cost-effective UV systems for destroying Total Organic Carbons (TOC’s) in water. Whether your destroying NDMA, 1,4-dioxane, TCE, MTBE, urea, endocrine disruptors or other organics, only NeoTech Aqua provides ultraviolet TOC reduction with a treatment chamber optimized for low pressure mercury lamps. As a result, NeoTech Aqua’s UV systems achieve a three times greater TOC reduction per kilowatt compared to standard UV systems, reducing our clients’ costs and energy consumption. In addition to efficiently generating ample 185 nm UV for TOC reduction, NeoTech Aqua’s TOC reduction systems also generate significant levels of 254 nm UV which serve as a powerful disinfectant, providing you both TOC-free and organism-free product water.
The NeoTech CU4-X™ UV Water Treatment Control Interface is a remote and compact master controller capable of managing up to four NeoTech ultraviolet water treatment chambers independently and simultaneously.
The U.S. EPA is gearing up to limit perchlorate in public drinking water systems, so municipalities should start preparing to adopt the appropriate testing and treatment technologies. In a recent report, the agency identified several technologies as the best available to address the perchlorate problem.
When I attended the U.S. EPA-hosted PFAS Summit held at the Horsham, PA high school auditorium on July 25, 2018, the education I received from state and municipal leaders focusing on the local problem was more than just a professional briefing. It was ominously personal, due to the fact that the Water Online editorial office where I work and drink water every day is served by a utility sitting smack-dab in the middle of one of the most concentrated PFAS hotspots in the U.S.
Nick Burns, director of water treatment technology for (the Americas region of) Black & Veatch, discusses the health concerns, current regulatory status, and documented presence of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), also sometimes called perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), in drinking water supplies — as determined by sampling under the U.S. EPA's Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule 3 (UCMR3).
By now, just about everyone in the U.S. has heard about Flint, Michigan’s water woes. Despite the many issues raised by that incident, urban water systems are not the sole reason the 2017 Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the U.S. drinking water infrastructure an overall “D” grade. Hidden within that disheartening rating are the harsh realities faced by rural water systems.
It’s no secret that the U.S. EPA has changed course in the last year. But how have those changes affected local water and wastewater treatment operations? And how are those operations going to evolve along with the federal agency?
Our environment is rife with testimonials to the law of unintended consequences. When it comes to water treatment, the compound 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP) is the latest surprise making its way through the remediation lifecycle.
From inspecting for foreign body contaminants to complying with food safety regulations, cand makers must implement food safety programs to safeguard brand reputation and protect consumers.
This article will discuss how the detection limit for analytical methods can be combined with cleaning validation swab limits to create a detectability scale.
Microbiological contamination is at the top of the CDMO threat list. A CDMO needs to have clearly defined procedures and allow client access to data.
There are many options for ensuring accurate billing of water used at established industrial customer locations. But how do municipalities or businesses keep track of water availability and use for intermittent applications or movable access points? We spoke with McCrometer, Inc.’s Marc Bennett for insight into how water utilities and industries can efficiently track and allocate water use for billing or internal accounting purposes in such ad hoc applications.
Potable reuse offers a massive opportunity to recover water from the wastewater process, but projects face a variety of barriers to getting off the ground. Most successful early adopters engaged early with their constituents and implemented smaller-scale demonstration projects that were accessible to the public to prove the technology and process.
Evidence indicates that manganese (Mn) is more than a nuisance: it's a threat to health. It's time to get serious about removing it from drinking water.
In a slight change in topic, this is going to be a more general article around why I believe water treatment technologies are so critical. Why this Industry is so vital, and what depends on the new technologies that this industry generates. We do so much where I work that goes well beyond produced water recycling, and it is all extremely important.
Water professionals must plan and budget to meet new regulations on the horizon. They must find the best technology for removing emerging contaminants, such as perfluorinated compounds. Above all, they want to ensure the health and safety of their customers.
Understanding the different considerations for bioburden control in various operations and production steps can help define a strategy for successful production.
This article is intended to highlight inconsistencies in testing elastomer vial stoppers — and to drive the collaborative development of a more sensitive, harmonized particle count method.
As with so many other drinking water treatment processes, corrosion control demands a delicate balance among multiple factors. From the water-purifying chlorine that increases corrosion risk, to alternative strategies that reduce corrosion — using either elevated pH or phosphates — keeping corrosion under control requires sound strategy and reliable execution. Here are several approaches to addressing those conditions, along with options for better, more effective corrosion control.
Water utilities with highly successful monitoring programs tend to share a common trait: they have a well-defined plan for calibration that emphasizes frequency and tracking. However, when done properly, this process is time-consuming and often leads to unnecessary labor and downtime. The good news is that advanced metering technology is available for plants to get a better handle on the instrument’s performance with significantly less effort.
When water and wastewater plant operators can’t get accurate flow measurements or analytical readings — or lack confidence in their instruments’ readings — it creates challenges with the process. When substandard water goes to homes and causes a boil order, or discharge pollutes a lake or reservoir, the resulting bad press, fines, and potential lawsuits erode public confidence. Avoiding these kinds of problems is rooted in good preventive maintenance habits.
The water industry has made progress in developing numerical values for screen-capture ratings under specific conditions. One such example is the UK Water Industry Research (UK WIR) standard. Its methodology is sound in measuring capture rate for a specific screen in a channel for a specific time and set of conditions. However, the measurements provided in these studies cannot be assumed to represent the performance of that screen in any other wastewater treatment plant or even in the same channel in a different time or season.
Pneumatic conveying is an effective form of moving dry materials in food manufacturing. However, the long lengths of conveying pipe present challenges in terms of addressing cleanliness and sanitation.
When drinking water leaves a treatment plant through giant pipes, with the help of huge pumps, the pressure can exceed 200 psi. The high pressure is a necessity because water must travel a long distance in some cases. Water towers scattered throughout the distribution system aid in the process so it can reach all utility customers. The problem is that not all distribution points in a water system are created equal.
