Advanced Wastewater Treatment Pilot System Supplied to Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts

Desalitech, a provider of high-efficiency water production and treatment solutions, announced recently that it will supply an advanced pilot wastewater treatment system to the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, one of the largest wastewater municipalities in the State of California. The Desalitech system will help the Sanitation Districts to lower chloride levels in the Santa Clarita Valley’s treated wastewater to below the limits set by the State and thereby avoid fines while increasing efficiency and reducing salts and other impurities. The system is uniquely capable of achieving high recovery from challenging water compositions. High recovery will effectively reduce effluent discharge and brine disposal costs, which can represent over 50 percent of total water treatment project costs.

The Sanitation Districts collect wastewater from the Valley’s homes and businesses and cleans and disinfects it to produce high quality recycled water. Recycled water is either returned to the environment through the Santa Clara River or provided to local water agencies for landscape irrigation. The State of California has ordered the Sanitation Districts to lower chloride levels in the Valley’s treated wastewater to below the State’s strict legal limits. Current treatment plants are not designed to remove chloride, and the Sanitation District will use state of the art technology to do so with the highest possible efficiency to maximise the yield of valuable recycled water, ensure its purity, and minimise environmental impact.

Desalitech’s Closed Circuit Desalination (CCD™) solutions reliably extract purified water from challenging and varying sources at high recovery rates with minimal energy consumption. Ideal for industrial water and effluent treatment, agricultural water supply and inland brackish desalination, CCD reverse osmosis (RO) systems produce as little as 1/3 the amount of waste as conventional RO systems in various installations around the globe. Successful testing at the Sanitation Districts could lead to implementation of a full-scale system at the Valencia Water Reclamation Plant (WRP) which produces 22 million gallons of municipal effluent per day.

“One of the main challenges of operating typical RO systems at the WRPs is the amount of waste they generate,” said Phil Ackman, Supervising Engineer Wastewater Research for the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County. “Disposal of this waste from inland locations can be complicated and expensive, and Desalitech’s solution has the flexibility and reliability to help us meet our objectives. The potential of the Desalitech process to increase recovery and reduce waste could save the Sanitation Districts a tremendous amount of resources.”

The pilot study will be completed at the Whittier Narrows WRP to model data for the Valencia facility 100 miles north of Los Angeles. The Desalitech system will process 15 gallons per minute (gpm, 21,600 gallon per day) of municipal wastewater effluent as part of the Sanitation Districts’ research efforts to evaluate technologies to reduce chlorides in discharges from treatment plants in the Santa Clarita Valley. The pilot study will be conducted for 2,000 hours at recoveries ranging from 85% to 93%, while monitoring average specific energy, permeate quality, and scaling potential.

“Our CCD solutions attain unprecedented high water recovery rates to reduce the high costs associated with municipal effluent while providing an additional value treating this water for indirect-potable reuse,” said Nadav Efraty, Desalitech CEO. “CCD solutions are ideal for any municipal or industrial process that creates a wastewater stream, and we are excited to work with the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles to improve regional water quality.”