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.

Contact us to discuss your UV disinfection needs.

Rainwater transformed into safe drinking water for livestock at Ohio, USA farm

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%.

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Contact us to discuss your UV disinfection needs.

Mitchell’s Ice Cream chooses UV Pure for low-maintenance disinfection of rainwater

In 2018, a new rainwater harvesting system with UV Pure disinfection was installed at Mitchell’s Ice Cream in Strongsville, Ohio by UV Pure’s local representative, Rain Brothers.

Mitchell’s Ice Cream is one of the largest ice cream companies in Ohio with a fully integrated production facility. It offers over 35 flavours of hand-crafted ice cream along with a variety of pies, gourmet cakes and fresh fruit smoothies.

The onsite rainwater treatment process reduces demand on local water resources and provides a sustainable supply of water for landscape irrigation. Water is first collected in a 5,500 gallon (21,000 litre) precast concrete rainwater harvesting tank that feeds into a two-stage pre-treatment system. The pre-treatment includes a 20-micron melt-blown poly filter and five-micron carbon block filter that are housed in a five-cartridge stainless steel housing. The final step in the water treatment process is ultraviolet disinfection by a UV Pure Upstream NC 10-50 system.

The UV Pure system is compact, low-maintenance and very easy to use. It is much easier to maintain than the conventional UV disinfection system we installed a few years ago at the Mitchell’s Ice Cream main production facility in Cleveland, Ohio. The system we installed at that location turned out to be very high maintenance because it had to be taken apart every month to be cleaned. We took this into consideration when designing a rainwater harvesting system for their location in Strongsville.

~ Jonathan Meier, co-owner of Rain Brothers

Each UV Pure system is equipped with an automatic, self-cleaning wiper mechanism that prevents mineral deposits from accumulating on the quartz sleeve and dramatically reduces maintenance duties for operators. Maintaining a clean quartz sleeve is essential to achieve the highest possible UV dose for optimum disinfection performance and to avoid unnecessary alarms and system shutdowns.