New Recycled Water Plant Offers Californians Sustainable, Resilient Water Supply
Jan 02, 2020
Paso Robles, California, recently celebrated the completion of the new Tertiary Treatment Facilities at its wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), augmenting the roughly 30,000-resident city’s water stewardship in a state dealing with troublesome water scarcity.
Black & Veatch served as designer and engineer of record for both the secondary treatment project and the tertiary treatment project heralded as one of the largest, most complex infrastructure projects in the history of the 130-year-old city known for its hot springs. The Paso Robles WWTP project comes amidst California’s growing focus on sustainable, resilient and reliable water solutions.
Like many other cities in California, water is at a premium, and Paso Robles has a master plan that involves producing quality recycled water to irrigate public areas such as city parks and golf courses. By reducing the need to pump groundwater from the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin, the WWTP project helps build sustainability while strengthening the city’s water supply.
The project builds upon Black & Veatch’s history of providing water and wastewater services to Paso Robles. In 2008, the company was selected to upgrade the original WWTP, which had a peak capacity of 4.9 million gallons per day (mgd). These improvements were driven by the need to update aging equipment and comply with new discharge permits. That project was completed in 2015.
When the time came to move onto the master plan’s next phase, the city again turned to Black & Veatch – this time to perform the preliminary and detailed design and construction on the Tertiary Treatment Facilities. This new assignment produces Title 22-compliant recycled water for beneficial reuse.
The Tertiary Treatment Facilities project involved multiple components, including an Aqua-Aerobic cloth disc filtration process and in-channel Trojan ultraviolet (UV) light disinfection. UV disinfection was selected in lieu of the more cost-effective chemical disinfection to remove potential for formation of disinfection byproducts to the recycled water distribution system. The existing secondary clarifiers were repurposed and converted to an equalization basin upstream of the new filtration process. The project also entailed converting one of the onsite ponds to store the recycled water.
The facilities also feature an advanced nutrient harvesting system that removes ammonia, nitrate and phosphorus from the filtrate that comes from the digested sludge dewatering system. The filtrate, without being treated, was causing buildup of struvite in the pipes and inhibiting treatment processes.
The nutrient harvesting system is used to remove the nuisance struvite and to create commercial-grade fertilizer. In addition to plant maintenance purposes, the city is marketing the fertilizer to offset the cost of building the facility. This nutrient harvesting system is the first of its kind in the State of California.
“Black & Veatch has a long track record of solving challenging water needs by delivering innovative wastewater recycling and reuse solutions, particularly in areas of water scarcity,” said Ashutosh Shirolkar, Black & Veatch project manager. “Recycling and reuse strategies continue to evolve. What was once viewed as a creative solution to dispose of wastewater effluent has now become an important tool to help ensure a reliable and resilient water supply.”
“Our team has an unprecedented ability to tackle these large-scale wastewater treatment projects – navigating complicated regulatory environments, aligning disparate stakeholders, and addressing funding – to complete projects that deliver as promised.”
About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch is an employee-owned, global leader in building critical human infrastructure in Energy, Water, Telecommunications and Government Services. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people in over 100 countries through consulting, engineering, construction, operations and program management. Our revenues in 2018 were US$3.5 billion.
More News and Articles
Apr 24, 2024
News
Sustainable drainage solutions: German Start-up transforms urban water management.
Germany boasts a well-established infrastructure for managing rainwater and wastewater, yet many developing countries lack such systems. Addressing this gap, …
Apr 22, 2024
News
HDD tooling that gets the job done
Horizontal directional drilling is a dynamic process that constantly changes and adapts to suit a range of applications across utilities and infrastructure. Operators looking to get the most from their equipment …
Apr 19, 2024
News
WATCH: Overnight with SAERTEX-LINER H20 in São Paulo
Available through Pipe Core, high-quality liner SAERTEX-LINER H20 performed under pressure in São Paulo, Brazil.
Maintaining aging potable water pipe infrastructure is a constant challenge …
Apr 17, 2024
News
Immersive media provides wastewater experience in Denmark
An immersive media experience (IMX) may not be what most people want when they think about industrial wastewater, but that is exactly what visitors can expect when they visit a new installation …
Apr 15, 2024
News
Spotlight on gender diversity at Pipe Core
Since founding in 2008, Pipe Core’s team has grown across all areas of the business and is now in a position where there are more females than males across the organisation. Research published in Harvard …
Apr 12, 2024
News
New Wave of Startups Scale Innovation to Solve Global Water Challenges
Innovators from Around the World Join Xylem’s 2024 Accelerator Program to Deploy Breakthrough Innovations for Utilities and Industrial Users of Water
A new group of startups …
Apr 08, 2024
News
Integrated sustainable electricity and clean drinking water systems
Altitude Water and New Use Energy Solutions have partnered to create integrated, mobile solar-plus-water generation systems that produce sustainable electricity and clean drinking …
Apr 05, 2024
News
How to Evaluate Hydraulic Fracture Risk in HDD Design
The design of horizontal directional drill (HDD) installations often requires an evaluation of the potential for hydraulic fracture of the soil layers through which an HDD passes. Evaluating …
Apr 02, 2024
News
Historic Project Linking Rome and Vatican City Uses Advanced Technology and Local Knowledge to Keep Water Flowing
Relocation of Major Sewer Infrastructure Enables Construction of Pedestrian Link for 35 Million Visitors to the 2025 Jubilee
Water …
Mar 27, 2024
News
USU Study Looks at Water Main Break Rates in the U.S. and Canada
Report Highlights Correlation Between Material and Diameter
Utah State University (USU) has published new research on water main breaks in the United States and Canada, examining …
Mar 26, 2024
News
Update BE-21: New Material in Course and Modules on Trenchless Pipe Installation
Online training on the topic of pipeline installation in civil engineering: Trenchless technology for underground drainage construction can be a resource-efficient, …
Mar 25, 2024
Article
Bacteria as a new weapon in wastewater treatment
In early November, San Diego based startup Aquacycl officially opened its first European office and test center at the Water Campus in Leeuwarden. The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA) …
Contact
Black & Veatch
Melina Vissat
11401 Lamar Avenue
66211 Overland Park
United States
Phone:
+1 303-256-4065