The City of Baltimore, Maryland has a water system that that currently serves approximately 1.8 million people. The City is faced with various challenges related to aging infrastructure and increased potable water demands. To address these challenges, the City recently undertook a study to evaluate water supply and treatment alternatives and develop a conceptual design for a new 120 million gallon per day (mgd) water treatment plant. As part of the study, a year-long pilot initiative consisting of four distinct phases testing the short listed technologies selected for possible treatment at the new water treatment plant was implemented. From the pilot testing came a recommended treatment train. Process design criteria was collected in order to assess capital and operational costs for the full-scale plant. Ultimately, the recommended treatment scheme includes low-pressure membrane filtration, which allows for consistent finished water quality irrespective of the raw water supply being used. The designated site consists of large hills and some very steep terrain. While analyzing the use of membranes in the process, it was observed that siphoning could be used due to the site topography. Siphoning allows the water to use the available head of the water to be pushed through the membranes without the use of permeate pumps which is the largest energy user in the entire membrane system. The natural terrain at the site, which would give the membranes a large head differential, would allow the plant to siphon up to 100% of the flow, with an average of 70% of the time. This ability would save the City hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in power costs.
This presentation is available to AMTA Members only.
Speaker
- Sophia Liskovich
Company
- Gannett Fleming, Inc.
Event
- AMTA Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA
Session
- San Diego Biennial
Date
- 07/12/10
Media
Keywords
- Gravity, Siphon, membrane
Reference
- 9650-DP503