Terminal Island Water Reclamation Plant Microfiltration Facility System

Evoqua Water Technologies, LLC

The City of Los Angeles, Terminal Island Water Reclamation Plant, built in 1935, is located 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles and is one of four water reclamation plants in the City. The advanced system treats approximately fifteen million gallons of wastewater daily throughout the various service areas of San Pedro, Harbor City, and Wilmington. With increased water shortages projected, population growth, and emphasis on decreasing environmental footprints, the advanced water treatment technologies assist in providing a high quality water supply, protect groundwater quality, and decrease volume of exported potable water demand. Civiltec Engineering is assisting the systems refinement project in leading to the reuse of all effluent and ceasing discharges to the harbor to comply with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) requirements.

This innovative facility takes the nearby harbor area’s discharged wastewater and cleans the water using advanced water purification technology. This includes microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and an advanced oxidation process (AOP). The microfiltration system is a purification process that separates particulate matter from soluble compounds using a fine membrane media. Microfiltration is an excellent separation technology for desalination pretreatment and is utilized at Terminal Island for reverse osmosis pretreatment and wastewater reclamation, as well as for producing a potable water replacement. Interestingly with recent California regulations the water is treated to such a level that it is comparable in appearance and quality to drinking water, and Civiltec personnel were able to taste the water from the plant downstream from the AOP.

To build on prior successes with collaborative delivery and reduce the overall project schedule, the City of Los Angeles chose to use fixed-price design-build deliverables. The Evoqua Water Technologies and Civiltec Engineering design-build team completed the advanced water treatment facility refinement, which maintains wastewater treatment capacity to produce twelve million gallons per day of high-quality water for reuse and seawater barrier replenishment to protect the groundwater. The design-build team designed seamless integration with existing treatment systems and into the existing plant footprint while minimizing impacts on operations during tie-ins and shutdowns. Evoqua, DuPont, and Civiltec, in collaboration with plant operations staff, completed numerous special plant accommodations and installed the microfiltration system, all process piping, Clean-in-Place system, chemical dosing systems, pumping systems, compressed air systems, blower systems, control systems, and necessary improvements to facilitate the successful completion of this project. Civiltec Engineering’s Project Manager C. Shem Hawes oversaw this project. Additional team members from Civiltec Engineering included Sanjay K. Verma, PE (Project Engineer), Heber Torres, PE (Electrical Engineer), Chris Duncan, PLS (Survey Manager), and Jenny Tsan (Designer). Jarrett Addison, PE from Evoqua Water Technologies led project engineering and project management. DuPont served as a sub-consultant to provide their skillset in the overall systems equipment and process. DuPont’s Jose Tavarez led project management and Brandon Gonzales, PMP, led the project engineering. City of LA’s Lance Thibodeaux and Dean A. Taylor provided project coordination and design review to round out the team for this successful collaborative project.

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