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Mobile Emergency Response Water Treatment Technology Results
Citation:
Bartley, B., J. ADAMS, AND M. Blumenstein. Mobile Emergency Response Water Treatment Technology Results . Presented at AWWA WATER SECURITY CONGRESS, CINCINNATI, OH, April 06 - 08, 2008.
Impact/Purpose:
to inform the public
Description:
When natural disasters like hurricanes, floods and earthquakes occur, safe drinking water can be compromised, limited or unavailable. Under such situations, communities have emergency response plans. One of many options for providing safe drinking water during emergency situations is to use mobile water treatment systems that can create potable water from water of unknown quality. These systems can provide potable water to critical infrastructure, such as hospitals, fire stations, or police stations. Depending on the situation, point-of-use (POU) or point-of-entry (POE) treatment systems could be used, or there may be a need for a larger system capable of treating thousands of gallons or more per day. One larger system available to communities is the Expeditionary Unit Water Purifier (EUWP), developed by the US Army’s Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Command (TARDEC). TARDEC, along with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center (NFESC) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), deploy and operate the EUWP as needed. The EUWP was deployed to Biloxi, MS after Hurricane Katrina to supply potable water to a hospital, using seawater from the Gulf of Mexico as the source water. The EUWP is a skid mounted system designed to fit into a C-130 transport aircraft or on a standard flat bed semi trailer. The system was designed to produce potable water from almost any freshwater or seawater source, with a capacity of 100,000 gallons per day. The EUWP treatment train begins with optional ferric chloride coagulation, followed by a group of ultrafiltration (UF) membrane modules comprising a membrane treatment unit, then a unit of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane modules. The treated water can be chlorinated and stored in a 20,000-gallon bladder tank prior to distribution. The EUWP was tested under the EPA ETV Program. Sites for the field verifications were Gallup, New Mexico using secondary treated wastewater as source water, Michigan using Lake St. Clair as source water and Port Hueneme, California using seawater as source water. Chemical and microbiological results on the field and laboratory tests of the EUWP will be presented.