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USEPA'S RESEARCH EFFORTS IN SMALL DRINKING WATER TREATMENT TECHNOLOGIES
Citation:
Moreno*, H, J A. Goodrich*, AND R C. Haught*. USEPA'S RESEARCH EFFORTS IN SMALL DRINKING WATER TREATMENT TECHNOLOGIES. Presented at 8th Drinking Water Seminar, Dorado, PR, 05/22-24/2002.
Description:
Currently, in the United States there are approximately 50,000 small community and 130,000 non-community systems providing water to over 25 million people. The drinking water treatment systems at these locations are not always adequate to comply with current and pending regulations such as the Surface Water Treatment Rule, the Disinfectants/Disinfection By-Product Rule, the Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule, and the Ground Water Disinfection Rule. It has been estimated that small water systems account for over 100,000 violations to these regulations annually, mostly violations to the Maximum Contamination Level (MCL) and the Monitoring/Reporting (M/R) regulations.
In order to solve the many problems facing the thousands of small community and non-community drinking water systems, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is currently conducting research for the demonstration and evaluation of alternative and innovative drinking water treatment technologies for small systems. These in-house and field-scale research projects are taking place at the USEPA Water Supply & Water Resources Division (WSWRD), Test and Evaluation (T&E) Facility located in Cincinnati, Ohio. The WSWRD has focused on the smallest systems, servicing water in the 25 to 500 population range. The USEPA is particularly interested in the development of small drinking water treatment technologies characterized by a minimal use of chemicals, a low residual waste production, ease of operation, reliability, and low operational cost. The results from this research will (1) translate in better designed technologies for small systems that not only will produce quality drinking water, but also will match the exact needs and resources of the community, (2) reduce the cost of compliance, and (3) facilitate the introduction and acceptance of new technologies.
The T&E Facility is a multi-disciplinary research resource in which a wide variety of water treatment and other environmental protection technologies are conceived, designed, and evaluated in the laboratory, pilot and field-scale. The USEPA is currently operating several small system package plants and point-of-use/point-of-entry units at the facility. Experimental tests of the various systems are designed to challenge each treatment technology and evaluate the cost and ease of operation. The following is a list of the technologies installed and in operation at the T&E Facility.
Filtration Systems
a. Slow sand filtration
b. Rapid sand filtration
c. Ultrafiltration
d. Bag and cartridge filtration
Disinfection Systems
a. Ozone disinfection
b. Ultra Violet (UV) light disinfection
c. Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP)
d. On-site chlorine generators
This presentation will provide an overview of innovative water treatment technology research being conducted at the USEPA Test & Evaluation Facility in Cincinnati, Ohio.