Santa Paula Water Recycling Facility - Innovative Solution

Santa Paula Water Recyling Facility

P u r e G e n i u s

PERC WATER CORPORATION SANTA PAULA WATER RECYCLING FACILITY CASE STUDY – 2

SANTA PAULA WATER RECYCLING FACILITYInnovative Solutions to Municipal Wastewater Problems

The City of Santa Paula was required to comply with waste discharge standards mandated by the Regional Water Quality Control Board. The City’s existing wastewater treatment plant, originally built in 1939 was in need of replacement. The City spent several years designing alternatives and incurred significant dollars during this time, with a looming deadline ahead of them and $8 million of accrued fines. In 2007, the City entered into a settlement agreement with the RWQCB to achieve full compliance with the permit by December 15, 2010. Fol-lowing years of design efforts and millions of dollars of engineering consulting fees, the City voted to solve its wastewater problems using a Public-Private Partnership (P3)delivery method.

In May 2008 the City of Santa Paula awarded a P3 contract to the team of Alinda Capital and PERC Water. Two months later, PERC Water broke ground and commenced construction and in parallel completed the engineer-ing documents for the project. In May 2010 the new water recycling facility was treating 100% of the City’s waste-water in full compliance with the P3 contract, seven months ahead of the deadline mandated by the RWQCB. The award winning plant has been operating in full compliance with the DBOF contract since the commence-ment of operations.

The City’s goals were fully achieved, as follows:

• Provide certainty of financing — Achieved

• No capital outlay by City — Achieved

• Local Job Creation — Achieved, 88% of hours were local labor

• Provide certainty of schedule — Achieved, seven months ahead of schedule

• Provide certainty of costs — Achieved

• Provide certainty with effluent requirements — Achieved, seven months early

• Provide transfer of risk for energy costs — Achieved, 30% lower than

guaranteed

• Provide a facility that would meet the City’s future capacity — Achieved

TimelineJuly 2007 City chose P3 delivery method

May 2008City signed contract with Santa Paula Water LLC

July 2008Construction began

December 2009Construction completed

April 2010Facility began treating City’s wastewater7 months early

December 2010Compliance deadline



Storm Water Management Odor Control

Control Building

Dewatering

Screening andHeadworks

BiosolidsDewatering

MembraneSeparation Tanks

RecycledWater

EducationalCenter

UV- Disinfection

Membrane Separation Tank

Blowers

Screening & Head Works

Electrical/SCADA System

Electrical/SCADA System

SANTA PAULA WATER RECYCLING FACILITY


Unlike the open treatment tanks that have long been an industry standard, the tanks in PERC Waters trademarked ASP® MBR design are built underground, the advantages of which include:

• Maximum odor control and noise reduction - The covered process tanks eliminate the unpleasant offsite odors and noises that typically surround a traditional wastewater treatment facility

• Minimal land use - The total tank area is less than ¾ of an acre resulting in

70% less land required by open tanks

• Aesthetically-pleasing facilities - The operations buildings built above the

Facility Statistics

• Design Capacity - 4.2 million gallons per day

• Footprint - 1.5 acres

• Process Design - MembraneBio-Reactor (MBR)

“The cost of doing business was significant for us. We had to build a new wastewater treatment facility and we did not have the necessary funds. The DBOF delivery method gave the City a lot more latitude and the risk was transferred to the company who was doing the work.”

Bob Gonzales, former Mayor of Santa Paula


The City of Santa Paula was originally considering the traditional Design/Bid/Build approach for the new Facility but realized it would not meet their tight timeline and budget requirements. After having spent funds and time on designs that exceeded their budget, they were introduced to the P3 method of procurement, provided under California Government Code Section 5956-5956.10 (Code 5956), and chose to seek a single entity to finance, design, build, operate and maintain the new Facility.

• Guaranteed schedule • Guaranteed water quality• Guaranteed financing for 30 years • Energy/power risk and responsibility• Exit standards upon transfer to the City

The City entered into a P3 Agreement with Santa Paula Water, LLC to design, build, operate and finance the new Facility over a 30-year concession. The P3 Agreement includes:

• Capital repayments based on agreed upon schedule • Capital replacements • Fixed O&M cost • Variable O&M cost

The Facility is 100% privately funded and privately owned by Santa Paula Water LLC. The City is not responsible for any up-front costs and began paying Santa Paula Water a monthly Service Fee upon initiation of Facility operation.

Solution: A Public-Private Partnership

AwardsDBIAWesternPacific–BestProject–WaterAward2011PERC Water was awarded the top tier “Best Project – Water” Regional Award from the 2011 Design-Build Institute of America Western Pacific Region.

2010BusinessAchievementAward-ProjectMeritFor the second year in a row, the EBJ selected PERC Water as a 2010 Award Recipient, this year in the Project Merit category for the design, construction, and operation of this Facility.

2009 Business Achievement Award - Sustainability & Resource ProtectionThe EBJ selected PERC Water as a 2009 Sustainability and Resource Protection Award recipient as a result of their efforts to deploy energy-saving technology at this Facility.

GlobalWaterIntelligence–WaterDealoftheYear2009PERC Water and Alinda Capital were presented the Global Water Awards’ 2009 “Water Deal of the

Year” Award of Distinction for their utilization of public-private partnerships in their contract for this Facility.

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Facility Design Overview

The solids processes include aerobic digestion and sludge dewatering. All odorous process areas are fully con-trols with a dual odor control system.

The effluent is treated to a tertiary level meeting Title 22 requirements and present requirements of the Regional Board. It is currently disposed in thirteen acres of percolation ponds located to the east of the new facility, however the City is drafting an alternate use plan for the recycled water to reclaim and reuse it as an additional revenue stream for the City.

Influent Lift StationScreening and Head WorksFlow Equalization TanksPre-Anoxic ZoneAerobic ZonePost–Anoxic ZoneMembrane Separation TankUV–DisinfectionEffluent StorageEffluent Pump StationPercolation Ponds

Majortreatmentprocessesinclude:

PERC Water developed a membrane bioreactor (MBR) process design where the majority of the treatment occurs in underground tanks. The tanks require approximately three-quarters of an acre of land and are built mostly be-low the existing grade. The tanks utilize common wall construction, requiring a total volume of 7,000 cubic yards of concrete and less yard piping and conduits. The operations buildings are constructed above the tank struc-ture, reducing land requirements, and contain the process equipment, a laboratory, restrooms, workshop, break rooms and administrative offices. The covered tanks and noise and odor controls makes the facility neighbor-friendly and a positive addition to the surrounding community.

The facility was designed to be built in two phases, allow-ing for an efficient expansion when additional capacity is re-quired. The tank structure was constructed for both phase one and two at 4.2 million gal-lons per day (MGD) average dry weather flow (ADWF) but is equipped with membranes needed to treat 3.4 MGD serv-ing a maximum population of approximately 42,500. When it becomes necessary to expand the capacity, addi-tional membranes will be installed into the facility, increasing the rated capacity to 4.2 MGD serving a population equivalent of approximately 52,500. This helps to keep operation and maintenance costs and future construc-tion costs at a minimum.


Facility Construction

PERC Water developed a membrane bioreactor (MBR) process design where the majority of the treatment oc-curs in underground tanks. The tanks require approximately three-quarters of an acre of land and are built most-ly below the existing grade. The tanks utilize common wall construction, requiring a total volume of 7,000 cubic yards of concrete and less yard piping and conduits. The operations buildings are constructed above the tank structure, reducing land requirements, and contain the process equipment, a laboratory, restrooms, workshop, break rooms and administrative offices. The covered tanks and noise and odor controls makes the facility neigh-bor-friendly and a positive addition to the surrounding community.

The facility was designed to be built in two phases, allowing for an efficient expansion when additional capacity is required. The tank structure was constructed for both phase one and two at 4.2 million gallons per day (MGD) average dry weather flow (ADWF) but is equipped with membranes needed to treat 3.4 MGD serving a maximum population of approximately 42,500. When it becomes necessary to expand the capacity, additional membranes will be installed into the facility, increasing the rated capacity to 4.2 MGD serving a population equivalent of approxi-mately 52,500. This helps to keep operation and maintenance costs and future construction costs at a minimum.

After completion of construction, PERC Water commenced electrical, mechanical, equipment installation, controls, program-ming, testing, commissioning and startup. The facility took full flow from the City in May 2010, seven months in advance of its December 15 compliance deadline.

“I’ve never known of a municipal projecttobecompletedontime.I’ve been involved in a num-ber of different organizations,community college district, city school districts, where finishingsix months after the projectedcompletion date is considered a success. This project was com-pletednotjustontimebutsevenmonths early and I give credit to PERC Water and their team for gettingthejobdone.”

Bob GonzalesFormer Mayor of Santa Paula



OperationalEfficiences

Theseenergy-efficientfeaturesincluded:

UV Disinfection – The facility uses the Degremont Technologies’ Aquaray® 3X UV Modules which are equipped with amalgam lamps for UV disinfection. Amalgam lamps are the most energy efficient lamps for generating ultra violet light at the high power density required. Additionally, the control system can vary the lamp output to precisely meet the UV dose requirements for disinfection, minimizing the electrical consump-tion.

Membrane system – The MBR technology combines biological wastewater treatment and membrane filtra-tion into one unit process, producing a consistently high quality effluent in an extremely compact footprint. PERC Water incorporated Koch Membrane Systems’ single header PURON™ membrane filtration modules into the MBR design because they are energy efficient and provide significantly lower lifecycle costs.

Aeration system – As membrane scouring and aeration account for nearly half of a facility’s power con-sumption, PERC Water selected energy-efficient air production and usage systems. The KTurbo blower’s in-ternal variable frequency drives allows PERC Water to control, monitor and specifically adjust the air flow for aeration over a wide range of operations.

Smart controlling system – The Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system has the unique ability to gather, dis-play, track and store live data generated by the facility. In an effort to optimize energy consumption, the SCADA system is designed to consistently update operators on the exact status and measure-ments of all of the facility’s processes such as air flow, water flow and tank capacity and will notify operators of abnormal conditions directly to the operator’s cell phone.

The SCADA system is accessed through Central PERC™, a web application where all the facility’s current and historical operation-al data is integrated within one platform that can be accessed and controlled wirelessly from an iPad, iPhone, Droid or any other web-capable device. Lighting design – Using a combination of natural lighting, LED lamps, electronic ballast for fluorescent lamps, light sensors and automatic dimming devices, the facility exceeded the state’s Title 24 energy-efficiency requirements and Southern Cali-fornia Edison’s stringent standard.

As a result of the energy saving measures employed at the facility, PERC Water was awarded the “2009 Sustainability and Resource Protection Award” by the Environmental Business Journal and a grant through Southern California Edison’s “Savings by Design” program to help fund the energy saving technology.

PERC Water will operate the facility for 30 years. As a result, they invested their own funds in design enhance-ments during construction to reduce the energy consumption costs. In the first five months of the facility’s op-eration, the power consumption costs have been approximately 35 percent lower than expected. The energy savings are split 50/50 with the City.


High Quality Water for Reuse

After three years of operation, the Santa Paula Water Recycling Facility (WRF) consistently performs under the projected budget and produces water quality significantly better than expected.

The Santa Paula WRF began operating in May 2010, seven months ahead of schedule. Following a fast-track design and construction schedule of less than 2 years, the Facility has proven it can produce high quality re-cycled water while performing at lower than expected costs for the City of Santa Paula and its residents.

The Facility’s operating costs during the first three years of operation are approximately 15% lower than pro-jected, mainly due to the energy consumption being 30% lower than expected. In addition, the WRF has ef-ficiently removed biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total suspended solids (TSS) from the wastewater, producing a final effluent well below the effluent discharge limits established by the SWRQB (Table 1).

Table1.The average BOD and TSS concentration of Santa Paula WRF influent and effluent measured during the first three years of operation. The WRF removed BOD and TSS from the wastewater with greater than 99% efficiency, producing a high-quality final effluent well below the permit limits established by the SWRCB.

The new Santa Paula WRF has also proven effective at removing total nitrogen from the wastewater (Table 2). The average total nitrogen concentration of the effluent averaged 7 mg/l during the first three years of operation. Additionally, the unique process configuration of the Santa Paula WRF produces an astonishingly clear effluent. The water clarity, referred to as turbidity, has averaged <0.1 NTU since the new WRF went online (Table 2). This excellent measure of water clarify is more than 20 times better than the standards established by the SWRCB! The WRF is currently producing approximately 2,000 acre-feet per year of recycled water, which hopefully will be utilized as reuse water in the near future.

Table2.The average total nitrogen concentration of the Santa Paula WRF effluent after three years of opera-tion is well below the limits established by the SWRCB. The clarity of the effluent, referred to as turbidity, has been remarkable due to the unique processes employed at the WRF.

ParameterAvg.Influent

Concentration, mg/lEffluentPermit

Requirements, mg/lAvg.Effluent

Concentration, mg/lRemoval

Efficiency,%

BOD 284 10 2 <99

TSS 296 10 0.9 <99

ParameterEffluentPermitRequirements Avg.EffluentValue

Total Nitrogen 10 mg/l 7 mg/l

Turbidity 2 NTU <0.1 NTU


Click the following link to view the “Santa Paula Solution” Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_OKr3n5JYc

Click the following link to view the “Santa Paula Animation” Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfX6zEAkmsM

PERC Water Corporation959 South Coast Drive, Suite 315

Costa Mesa, California 92626Office 714.352.7750

Fax 714.352.7765www.percwater.com

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_OKr3n5JYc

Santa Paula Water Recycling Facility - Innovative Solution

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