Advanced Wastewater Treatment: Plantation Pilot Project

In an effort to identify alternative water supplies, the City of Plantation and the South Florida Water Management District entered into a cooperative agreement to evaluate recharging the Biscayne Aquifer with highly treated reclaimed water. As part of this work, Hazen and Sawyer designed and operated the first indirect potable reuse project in the country that focused on surface water discharge and infiltration.

Discharging into the East Holloway Canal, which is part of the Old Plantation Water Control District, has been identified as a potential source of recharging of the Biscayne Aquifer. The work associated with this project included investigating the feasibility of such discharge under a phased approach.

In the first phase, Hazen and Sawyer performed a technical and economical desktop evaluation of the potential process treatment schemes capable of meeting the required effluent water quality. The goal of this evaluation was to identify the most promising process scheme(s) for piloting. We also designed a pilot plant for the selected process scheme and prepared an Operation and Monitoring Plan for the pilot plant.

In the second phase, we secured, installed and operated/monitored the pilot plant with the goal of demonstrating the effectiveness of the process schemes in meeting the desired water quality to be discharged to the EHC.

For more information, please contact Pat Davis.

Pilot Testing Schematics and Results

Hazen installed and operated a pilot plant to demonstrate the effectiveness of meeting the necessary water quality to be discharged to the EHC.

Three process schemes were selected for piloting and must meet the anticipated effluent requirements, specifically Total Nitrogen < 1.5 mg/L and Total Phosphorous < 0.02 mg/L:

MBR Scheme: Primary effluent, membrane bioreactor (MBR), reverse osmosis (RO), and UV disinfection.
Conventional Treatment Scheme: Nitrified secondary effluent, denitrification filter, ultrafiltration (UF), RO, and UV disinfection.
RO Scheme: Nitrified secondary effluent, UF, RO, and UV disinfection.

A final report summarized the operation and results of the pilot plant, citing that all three process schemes demonstrated the ability to meet the stringent nitrogen and phosphorous limits.

Project Outcomes and Benefits

Pilot identified three process schemes capable of meeting the stringent nitrogen and phosphorous limits for aquifer recharge.
Pilot also evaluated emerging contaminants removal/destruction and potential ecosystem and receiving water impacts.