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  • 1.  Onsite Water Reuse Systems

    Posted 06-05-2023 10:57 AM

    Onsite Water Reuse Systems

    This article in ASCE Source (https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/article/2023/05/30/advancing-water-access-equity-using-onsite-nonpotable-water-reuse-systems) suggests several questions:

    1.      Are Onsite Water Reuse Systems a useful response in your area to water scarcity and cost?

    2.      What is equity in water supply and how can we implement it in projects?

    3.      Is the Journal of Sustainable Water Resources an ideal place to publish this research?



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    William McAnally Ph.D., P.E., D.CE, D.NE, F.ASCE
    ENGINEER
    Columbus MS
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  • 2.  RE: Onsite Water Reuse Systems

    Posted 07-20-2023 12:31 PM
    Edited by Tirza Austin 07-20-2023 12:30 PM
    1.      Are Onsite Water Reuse Systems a useful response in your area to water scarcity and cost?

    Yes - New York Area we have commute trains with "well water" non potable for hand washing etc. !  

    2.      What is equity in water supply and how can we implement it in projects?

    My guess is AIChE - SPE etc. papers . This stuff is happening worldwide .

    Perspectives on Industrial Water ReuseIN SECTION: THE CHE IN CONTEXT
    YORAM COHEN
    UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
    Among all of engineering's grand challenges, those related to water resources must be among the most fundamental. The drive toward water sustainability is a major undertaking that chemical engineers have embraced.

    Throughout the U.S., water management entities are confronting dwindling water supplies, rising energy costs, complex security concerns, and the need for environmental stewardship. Water of varying quality and quantity is needed for agricultural, industrial, and municipal consumption. Reclamation and treatment of municipal wastewater for direct aquifer recharge and industrial reuse, as well as for crop irrigation, are now practiced in many areas. There has also been significant effort to capture stormwater to augment local water supplies.

    Aside from issues related to potability, there is a growing realization that wastewater should be regarded as a resource not only for water reuse but also for energy and chemical production. It is estimated that water reclamation, recycling, and reuse could provide between 20% and 50% of the water use portfolio. Today, however, water reuse - which is critical for achieving water sustainability - remains in the single digits in most regions of the U.S.

    How can water supply and demand be optimally matched to help us advance toward water sustainability? Clearly, technological advances in water-use efficiency, water reuse, treatment, desalination, and conveyance will contribute to establishing more sustainable water portfolios in the agricultural, industrial, and municipal sectors.

    The quest for sustainable industrial water management requires effective management of industrial wastewater streams (including produced water from oil and gas activities) so as to increase water reuse while avoiding adverse environmental impacts. In order to identify the existing challenges and develop a roadmap in support of these goals, AIChE's International Society for Water Solutions (ISWS) recently teamed with AIChE's Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment (RAPID) Manufacturing Institute. In November 2018, the two entities convened a workshop on industrial water use and reuse in San Antonio, TX, which brought together water technology experts from industry, academia, and water utilities to explore technology opportunities and existing impediments.

    The workshop explored a variety of technologies for removing organic contaminants from marginal and wastewater streams via membrane separations, electrochemical techniques, and adsorptive processes, as well as organics destruction via advanced oxidation. In many industrial applications, water salinity must be reduced to <100 g/L before the source water or the reclaimed wastewater can be treated for reuse through membrane-based technologies such as reverse osmosis or nanofiltration. Processes such as electrodialysis and electrically driven ion-exchange processes were also discussed at the workshop, as were other approaches for dealing with high-salinity water. Those approaches include membrane distillation and forward osmosis, as well as integrated processes that aim to lower the operating pressures required for high-salinity RO desalination. Workshop participants also noted that zero liquid discharge (ZLD), although costly to achieve, is becoming critical in certain industrial applications where the discharge of residuals is not an option.

    The economy of water reuse is central to developing a successful path toward water sustainability. However, there is no single technology or economic model that can be applied across the landscape of water reuse. Water pricing is complex and varied, as are regulations covering allowable water quality and quantity for discharge to waterways and sewer systems or for aquifer recharge or deep-well injection. Therefore, approaches that include both centralized water reuse and distributed technologies at the local level must come into play.

    Water resources are spatially distributed, and industrial wastewater treatment systems are not part of established sanitary wastewater collection and distribution systems. To provide robust, fit-for-purpose water treatment, optimal management is needed. This includes integration of local sensor data with remote data acquisition, advanced data mining, process control, and effective real-time optimization. Thus, the importance of big data and cyberinfrastructure is being recognized as critical for guiding the efforts toward water sustainability. Challenges remain, and to this end bringing together expertise in water technology, process systems, and data science will be essential to establishing a roadmap for developing water system modeling and big data analytics approaches for advancing water sustainability.

    The path to industrial water sustainability is complex, as water, food, and energy are inextricably linked. Accordingly, food-energy-water nexus challenges must be addressed in a manner that will provide: (a) multi-community, shared solutions to cost-effective water supply, production, and reuse; and (b) opportunities for more widespread use of sustainable energy resources. AIChE is committed to engaging and supporting its constituencies to promote and develop the required effective water lifecycle assessment tools and advanced water reuse technologies that will set new standards for sustainable industrial water use.

    3.      Is the Journal of Sustainable Water Resources an ideal place to publish this research?

    Start point and look at there references on the below and I worked for NYCDOT . New York City spends big time in the space .


    The ChE in Context: Perspectives on Industrial Water Reuse

    AIChE
    https://www.aiche.org › ... › CEP › January 2019
    The drive toward water sustainability is a major undertaking that chemical engineers have embraced. ... Would you like to reuse content from CEP Magazine?

    Reduce Water Consumption through Recycling
    https://www.aiche.org › ... › CEP › April 2014
    Industrial facilities are increasingly turning to water reuse for a wide range of purposes. This article reviews water-reclamation technologies and explains ...

    AIChE Journal Highlight: A Bright Future for RO Water ...
    https://www.aiche.org › Publications › CEP › June 2017
    Would you like to reuse content from CEP Magazine? It's easy to request permission to reuse content. Simply click here to connect instantly to licensing ...

    AIChE Journal Highlight: Creating Sustainable Water ...
    https://www.aiche.org › ... › CEP › October 2015
    AIChE Journal Highlight: Creating Sustainable Water Treatment Systems ... Journal Perspective article, "Advanced Technologies for Water Treatment and Reuse.




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  • 3.  RE: Onsite Water Reuse Systems

    Posted 07-21-2023 11:56 AM

    Water, water.

    Like electricity, local supply and use makes a lot of sense (of course, water has the advantage of being renewable/recycled, too!)

    Recycling improves the efficiency of our use (although some would say the extra cost and energy is not economical ;(

    Which brings up to the bigger question of storage and distribution.

    Should we be building big, inter-regional transmission pipelines?  (like we do for electricity).  We did it for CA with the Colorado River's water.  Could water from the NW be fed back to the CO River basin?  Could water from the Northeast be fed to midwestern farms in dry years, or have a pipeline capable of reversing flow to put midwest flood years waters back to drought areas in the East? 

    40 years ago I heard that Chicago built huge unground cisterns for excess stormwater (designed by CDM, perhaps?) (I was rewriting Boston stormwater discharge permits at the time). 

    Does anyone know if that water is still there, and how much of the time the "tanks" are 25%+ full? is it a significant enough capacity/volume to be worth piping elsewhere?



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    Sarah Simon P.E., M.ASCE
    Founding Partner ACA
    Ipswich MA
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  • 4.  RE: Onsite Water Reuse Systems

    Posted 07-22-2023 11:42 AM

    Sarah, those are excellent ideas for regional water sharing. Some years ago there was a proposal to run a pipeline down the I20 median strip from the Mississippi River to west Texas. The suggestion was mostly laughed off and water transfers between basins is highly controversial; however, innovative thinking is essential in our present dilemma (crisis?) of water shortages in so many places and temporary excesses elsewhere.

    Bill



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    William McAnally Ph.D., P.E., D.CE, D.NE, F.ASCE
    ENGINEER
    Columbus MS
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  • 5.  RE: Onsite Water Reuse Systems

    Posted 07-22-2023 11:42 AM

    Thanks for the thoughtful response and citations, Len.



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    William McAnally Ph.D., P.E., D.CE, D.NE, F.ASCE
    ENGINEER
    Columbus MS
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  • 6.  RE: Onsite Water Reuse Systems

    Posted 07-27-2023 11:04 AM

    EPA has a web page on onsite water reuse systems Onsite Non-Potable Water Reuse Research | US EPA

    on the web page, there is a link to non-potable environmental and economic water reuse calculator, NEWR.  This is a web-based tool for screening-level assessments of source water options for any urban building location across the United States that is considering onsite non-potable reuse.



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    Nancy Powell P.E., D.NE, D.WRE, M.ASCE
    Hilton Head Island SC
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