Small community relies on UV for safe drinking water and wastewater treatment

For the Fetherston Park mobile home community in Eastern Ontario, UV Pure disinfection systems provided the best combination of protection, performance, and low maintenance at a price that the small community can afford.

Two Hallett 30 systems were installed in 2006 to upgrade the community’s drinking water system to meet provincial standards. The engineer selected UV Pure systems for primary disinfection because the systems are effective even for mineral-rich well water—unlike conventional “light-in-a-pipe” UV systems that can foul quickly and require frequent shutdowns for cleaning.

When the Park’s wastewater system was re-built in 2015, Clearford decided to incorporate dual Hallett 30 units for chemical-free disinfection of the treated effluent to make the water safe for discharging to a nearby ditch. A new membrane bioreactor (MBR) treatment plant was constructed with advanced technologies for treating the effluent to very high standards. All of the mechanical equipment is housed in a single 40-foot shipping container that is capable of treating 16,000 US gallons per day (60 cubic metres per day). Clearford’s MBR plant is designed with fit, functionality and reliability in mind—and UV Pure systems complement that approach.

“We’re confident that the UV Pure Hallett systems will provide continuous, uninterrupted disinfection with very little maintenance requirements. This lets us provide the best possible service to the residents of Fetherston and consistently meet regulatory requirements while maintaining low lifecycle costs.”

~ Kevin Hall, Project Engineer for Clearford

The site operators appreciate that UV Pure systems have easy lamp changes, remote monitoring, and an automatic cleaning system that prevents the accumulation of scale and biofouling inside the quartz sleeve, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual cleaning. Furthermore, operators avoid the risks of shipping, storing and handling toxic chlorine for disinfection.

Image: ‘Fetherston park saga comes to an end’ article, InsideOttawaValley.com

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Decentralized wastewater treatment protects a sensitive marine environment

Instead of building conventional septic systems for 15 new town-homes, a developer has installed a state-of-the-art Aquapoint moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) treatment system with chemical-free ultraviolet disinfection to reduce nutrient loading and improve water quality for a sensitive bay in Cataumet, Massachusetts.

The Cataumet Wastewater Treatment Plant will also replace the existing septic system for a nearby marina, and has capacity to provide treatment for up to 65 neighbouring homes whose septic systems are suspected of contributing to poor water quality and algae blooms in the bay.

Treated effluent from the underground MBBR process tanks is pumped up to a small control building where the flow is split to two Hallett 30 systems for disinfection. The compact design and vertical installation of the Hallett systems was critical for maximizing the limited space in the control building. The Hallett systems handle flow up to 60 gpm (227 L/min) with UV transmittance (UVT) as low as 65%, and consistently achieve fecal coliform levels less than 1 MPN/100 mL—far below the regulated target level of 200 MPN/100 mL (where MPN is the most probable number of coliforms).

“Many Aquapoint systems are equipped with UV Pure disinfection technology, which has proven itself to be the most cost effective, reliable and simple to use UV system that we’ve come across. The automatic, self-cleaning system is very reliable in maintaining clarity in the quartz sleeve. We rarely, if ever, have to manually clean a quartz sleeve.”

~ Josh Lindell, President of Aquapoint

Aquapoint also operates and maintains many of these sites and says the UV Pure systems provide significant savings in time and cost of ongoing operation. UVT, UV intensity and dose are monitored continuously via 4-20 mA outputs that are connected to the PLC system. If any parameters are out of specification, the system automatically notifies the operator who can perform a quick diagnostic to identify and troubleshoot the problem.

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Home treatment systems deliver safe water to First Nation community

A pilot program is demonstrating the benefits of point-of-entry (POE) treatment and UV disinfection to bring affordable, safe drinking water to the First Nation community of Alderville, Ontario.

The project, led by the Canadian unit of Arcadis, an international engineering design consultancy firm based in the Netherlands, provides a complete multi-barrier POE water treatment system for each of the 33 homes in the community to improve water quality and protect residents from waterborne pathogens.

Shed for water treatment system The treatment systems are designed to produce potable water that meets Ontario drinking water standards. Each residential POE system is installed outside of the home in an insulated, heated enclosure that combines water softening and filtration with an easy-to-operate Hallett UV disinfection system. A private well provides source water at each home, but water quality varies with groundwater levels, soil conditions, and mineral hardness.

The POE approach eliminates the need to build a central treatment plant and a network of distribution pipes to serve the entire community. The installation of distribution pipes would have added significant economic and engineering challenges to this project since many of the homes are separated by several kilometres.

“We selected UV Pure Hallett systems for this project because they are simple to use, require very little maintenance and are certified to the NSF/ANSI 55 Class A standard. The automatic cleaning system has prevented buildup of minerals on the quartz sleeves, which means we haven’t had to perform any manual cleanings in over a year of operation.”

~ Yousry Hamdy, Manager of Water and Wastewater for Arcadis Canada

Annual lamp changes are the only maintenance that the operator has performed on the systems since commissioning in October 2015. The Hallett systems are also equipped with 4-20 mA monitoring and smart sensors that provide continuous logging of UV intensity, net UV transmittance, and dose. Alarms notify the local operator and shut down the system to prevent residents from using the water.