The City of Sand City, California is constructing a desalination facility
utilizing seawater drawn from beach wells to provide a local supply of water to meet the
needs of the City's future growth. Numerous seawater desalination facilities are in the
planning, piloting, or demonstration stages in California; however, the Sand City facility
is the first to be permitted in California under the current surface water treatment
regulations and to receive approval from the California coastal commission as a
permanent municipal water treatment facility.
The City took a conservative approach to securing approval from the Department of
Public Health and the Coastal Commission. Specifically, the following measures were
employed to avoid complications in the permitting process:
use of beach well intakes to avoid concerns of entrainment and impingement
associated with open ocean intakes;
use of energy recovery devices and high efficiency positive displacement pumps
to reduce the energy use, carbon footprint, and operating costs of the facility;
use of subsurface brine discharge wells to avoid the risk of brine toxicity impacts
associated with ocean outfalls; and, selection of a treatment process providing 2-log units of additional removal or
inactivation of viruses, Giardia, and Cryptosporidium, above the highest level
required under California regulations. This paper presents the approval process for both the Department of Public Health
and the Coastal Commission, and discusses specific concerns addressed during the
permitting, such as the use of NSF-approved materials compatible with seawater,
acceptance of the German validation testing for UV units, and the monitoring of
conductivity as a surrogate for pathogens in the RO permeate. Includes tables, figure.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 780 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 8 |
| Published : | 11/01/2009 |
