Inadequate groundwater supplies prompted Cooper Farms in Ohio to begin harvesting and reusing rainwater in 2009 as a supplement to its potable supply for livestock drinking water and to reduce its demand on the local groundwater system.
The farm started exploring options to implement a multi-barrier treatment process with disinfection that could provide reliable, safe water. Rainwater can acquire numerous contaminants and pathogens as it is collected, so treating it to potable water quality standards is essential for preventing disease outbreaks and death among livestock.
Cooper Farms installed a treatment system that includes chemical-free UV Pure disinfection for its ability to handle low UV transmittance (UVT) water quality, a typical characteristic of the rainwater that is collected and stored in a retention pond at the site.
A small amount of well water is pumped into a retention pond, which is supplemented by harvested rainwater. The blended stream first passes through a microfiltration system that uses a specialized five-micron filter to remove organics, and then the filtered water is dosed with chlorine.
“Even after pond water is filtered, UVT can still be quite low, so the ability to consistently deliver a high UV dose under these conditions was a very important consideration for us when selecting UV Pure’s system with Crossfire Technology for this application,”
~ Brad Longberry, CEO of Flag City Water Systems, a local UV Pure representative.
Some pathogens like Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Legionella are resistant to chlorine, so UV disinfection was added as a second layer of protection to enhance the treatment system’s reliability for preventing disease outbreak. Final disinfection is performed by a variable-flow UV Pure system consisting of four Upstream NC 15-50 reactors sized to handle flows from 15 to 60 gpm (57 to 227 L/min) with UVT as low as 50%.