Decades of Pathogen Protection With Auxiliary High-Rate Treatment Technologies

Abstract

As with any optimal treatment solution, wet-weather alternatives should be geared to solve the problem at hand in a sustainable fashion. In most watershed studies, pathogens have been identified as the main pollutant of concern for wet-weather discharges from publicly owned treatment works (POTWs). Therefore, reliable disinfection over a wide range of flow rates tends to be the main treatment objective of most POTW wet-weather flow strategies. Low effluent suspended solids (TSS) or turbidity are generally recommended to provide effective effluent disinfection. State-of-the-art advanced physical and chemical technologies, sometimes referred to as enhanced high rate treatment (EHRT), have demonstrated their ability to provide consistently high TSS removal of wet-weather flows and produce effluents that are readily amenable to disinfection technologies widely used in conventional POTW facilities. Utilities faced with high wet-weather flow peaking factors should include auxiliary treatment facilities with EHRT technologies in their list of potentially feasible alternatives.