More than 90 percent of the community water systems in the United States are small systems that
serve fewer than 10,000 people. The majority of these small systems use groundwater as their
sole water supply. Increasing water demands and limited groundwater availability are forcing an
increasing number of small systems to consider surface water to augment or, in some cases,
replace their existing groundwater sources.
Developing a new surface water supply can be very challenging; especially to a small water
system that has used only groundwater. These systems, which often have limited technical and
financial resources, face a myriad of technical and financial decisions. This paper describes
a small system's development of a new surface water supply and discusses the following
challenges that must be addressed:
regulations that apply to the use and treatment of surface water;
source water quality;
treatment goals;
treatment processes;
blending of surface water with groundwater in a single distribution system;
funding and constructing the improvements; and,
public acceptance.
For a small system in Maryland, treatment technologies such as conventional with high-rate
settling, membranes, and various proprietary technologies were evaluated. Although these
technologies were found to be technically feasible for treatment, the real challenge for a small
system is affordability. Includes 5 references, tables, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 260 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 11 |
| Published : | 06/01/2006 |
