Algoma Orchards achieves water self-reliance with reliable onsite treatment

In 2009, Algoma Orchards opened a 165,000-square foot production facility in Ontario that packages annually over 36 million kilograms of apples for wholesale, presses nearly 4 million litres of juice, produces a variety of baked goods and gourmet foods for up to 90,000 visitors per year at its retail store.

The new facility was built to be self-reliant for its water needs with onsite potable water treatment for the bakery and visitors, plus state-of-the-art rainwater harvesting and membrane bioreactor (MBR) treatment for the reuse of process greywater.

Not long after opening, the facility began experiencing frequent shutdowns in its water supply caused by alarms from the conventional “light-in-a-pipe” UV disinfection systems that were experiencing biofouling of the quartz sleeves and sensor malfunctions.

After years of struggling with poor performance, Algoma Orchards started by replacing the conventional UV system for potable water disinfection with two new Upstream NC 10-75 units. The benefits were realized immediately in the bakery and retail store, as the systems put an end to the inconvenience of water shutdowns for patrons.

“We were constantly shutting down and manually cleaning our previous UV systems. At one point, we were cleaning the systems daily with each one taking about an hour to disassemble, clean and reassemble. Now, the UV Pure systems have been operating for about a year and we haven’t had to perform any manual cleanings. The self-cleaning mechanism is doing its job to keep the quartz sleeves clean, avoid alarms and prevent shutdowns.”

~ Ken Ferguson, Operations Manager at Algoma Orchards

The reliability and low maintenance of the UV Pure systems with Crossfire Technology prompted replacement of the other conventional UV system several months later with an Upstream NC 15-75 for the facility’s rainwater harvesting and MBR system that recycles treated process water from the apple flume, apple washing, bottle washing, pressing and filling equipment.

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Singapore housing development installs 78 UV systems for rainwater harvesting

An innovative rainwater harvesting system equipped with UV Pure disinfection allows residents at a new luxury housing development in Singapore to dramatically reduce potable water demand and contribute to the island nation’s goal of water self-sufficiency.

The systems were designed and installed by local UV Pure representative Netatech to capture, store and treat rainwater to a high standard that is safe for on-site landscape irrigation. Each of the 78 housing units is equipped with its own fully automated, chemical-free rainwater harvesting and disinfection system that can be managed by the homeowners. The systems will collectively help reduce potable water demand in the complex by an estimated 233,600 cubic metres (61.7 million US gallons) of water per year, alongside other water savings initiatives.

Rainwater is abundant in Singapore and our clients demand an efficient, easy-to-use harvesting and treatment system that can take full advantage of this resource. When designing this system, we compared alternatives such as chlorine and ultrafiltration membranes, but ultimately selected the UV Pure Upstream® system for its chemical-free operation, low maintenance requirements and energy efficiency.

~ Daniel Wong, Technology Innovation Officer for Netatech

Each treatment system includes a skid-mounted UV Pure unit in a dedicated outdoor compartment outside the house. Rainwater from each property is collected by gravity in a 700-litre (180-gallon) tank that passes through a pre-treatment screen filter and 5-micron cartridge filter. Disinfection is performed by an Upstream NC 10-75 unit that provides up to 33 litres per minute (9 gallons per minute) of clean water to supplement household water use.

Contact us to discuss your rainwater 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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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.