Adapting water treatment design and operations to the impacts of global climate change

Abstract

It is anticipated that global climate change will adversely impact source water quality in many areas of the United States and will therefore, potentially, impact the design and operation of current and future water treatment systems. The USEPA has initiated an effort called the Water Resources Adaptation Program (WRAP) which is intended to develop tools and techniques that can assess the impact of global climate change on urban drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. A three step approach for assessing climate change impacts on water treatment operation and design is being persude in this effort. The first step is the stochastic characterization of source water quality, the second step is the application of the USEPA Water Treatment Plant model and the third step is the application of cost algorithms to provide a metric that can be used to assess the coat impact of climate change. A model has been validated using data collected from Cincinnati’s Richard Miller Water Treatment Plant for the USEPA Information Collection Rule (ICR) database. An analysis of the water treatment processes in response to assumed perturbations in raw water quality identified TOC, pH, and bromide as the three most important parameters affecting performance of the Miller WTP. The Miller Plant was simulated using the EPA WTP model to examine the impact of these parameters on selected regulated water quality parameters. Uncertainty in influent water quality was analyzed to estimate the risk of violating drinking water maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). Water quality changes in the Ohio River were projected for 2050 using Monte Carlo simulation and the WTP model was used to evaluate the effects of water quality changes on design and operation. Results indicate that the existing Miller WTP might not meet Safe Drinking Water Act MCL requirements for certain extreme future conditions. However, it was found that the risk of MCL violations under future conditions could be controlled by enhancing existing WTP design and operation or by process retrofitting and modification.

Keywords

climate change / Water Resources Adaptation Program (WRAP) / operations

References

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Acknowledgements

This study is part of Water Resources Adaptation Program (WRAP)-Infrastructure supported by USEPA under project/contract EP-C-05-056 but has not been subjected to review by USEPA. The authors are grateful for assistance and cooperation from the following individuals for providing assistance and information for this study: Jeff Swertfeger, Jeff Vogt and Yeongho Lee of the Greater Cincinnati Water Works; Warren Swanson of Schmueser, Gordon and Meyer, Inc; Alexa Obolensky of the Philadelphia Water Department; Greg Carroll, Alison Dugan, Pat Fair and Steve Allgeier of EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water; and Jeff Adams, Hiba Ernst, Y. Jeffry Yang and John Lipscomb of EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg