Brackish Water RO System Gets New Membranes After 12 years

It is generally accepted in the water treatment industry that brackish water RO membranes will need to be replaced after approximately 5 years in operation. But membranes can last longer when installed in a properly designed and balanced system.

Water Treatment Systems, Inc. is proud to announce that next month, May 2019, we will be replacing membranes at our 1 MGD installation in North Palm Beach, FL for the very first time, after 12 years in operation. We always tell our customers that our systems are designed for long service life and minimal maintenance. We couldn't demonstrate that any better than this.

Sea Level Rise Poses Additional Peril for Coastal Communities

As sea levels rise, coastal communities could lose up to 50 percent more of their fresh water supplies than previously thought, according to a new study from Ohio State University. Hydrologists here have simulated how saltwater will intrude into fresh water aquifers, given the sea level rise predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC has concluded that within the next 100 years, sea level could rise as much as 23 inches, flooding coasts worldwide.
Scientists previously assumed that, as saltwater moved inland, it would penetrate underground only as far as it did above ground. But this new research shows that when saltwater and fresh water meet, they mix in complex ways, depending on the texture of the sand along the coastline. In some cases, a zone of mixed, or brackish, water can extend 50 percent further inland underground than it does above ground.
Like saltwater, brackish water is not safe to drink because it causes dehydration. Water that contains less than 250 milligrams of salt per liter is considered fresh water and safe to drink.

Global demand for desalination to rise each year until at least 2020

Desalination capacity is expected to grow by 8 per cent annually to 140 million m3/day by 2020, new research shows.

The rise will be driven in part by the demand for drinking water of 203 billion m3/year in the Middle East, and in the Caribbean and Oceania of 80 billion m3/year. 

Water Treatment Systems, Inc, will be ready for the challenge!

Israel and Jordan seal water-swap deal

Israel and Jordan have signed a bilateral agreement to exchange water and pipe Red Sea desalination brine to the shrinking Dead Sea.

 

Under the agreement, Jordan and Israel will share the potable water produced by a planned desalination plant in Aqaba. Its waste brines will be piped to the Dead Sea.The agreement involves the construction of a 65-80 million m³ a year desalination plant in Aqaba, Rom which Israel would be able to buy some 35 million m³ a year of potable water to convey to its desert south. In return, Jordan would be able to buy an additional 50 million m³ a year of water from Lake Kinneret, roughly doubling its current allocation.

Signing the agreement on Thursday is National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom, alongside his Jordanian counterpart, Water and Irrigation Minister Hazim El-Naser.



Advisor to the Israei government, Maya Eldar, said: "This is a real agreement that is going to make sure the cooperation and relationship between Israel and Jordan is going to last."

In addition to water swaps the agreement involves the construction of a 200 km pipeline to carry residual brines from the Aqaba desalination plant to the depleting Dead Sea.



The agreement, was the product of a memorandum of understanding signed in Washington, DC by Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian officials in December 2013.That memorandum of understanding also called for Israel to enable the direct sale of an additional 20 million m³ of water a year from Mekorot national water company to Palestine, but that was being worked on separately according to Eldar.

Clarification: Use of RO Water in Golf Industry Mag Article

I just finished reading an interesting article in Golf Course Industry Magazine, written by Jason Stahl, about the types and uses of golf course irrigation water. In the article, Mr, Stahl refers to comments of Dr. Dara Park, a soil and water specialist with the Clemson University School of Agricultural, Forest and Environmental Sciences. Dr. Park's informative information is very good but an important clarification is necessary regarding Dr. Parks comment about the use of RO water.

Dr. Park does not recommend the use of RO water because it is devoid of any beneficial minerals required by greens and fairways. In my many years of experience designing and supplying RO systems for GC irrigation, I have never seen highly purified RO water applied directly to the turf. Most RO systems are utilized to reduce salinity found in brackish water wells. The RO product water will not be "purified" by rather it will contain about 200 - 350 ppm TDS. This is an excellent water quality for irrigation however it is rare that even this quality water is applied directly to fairways and greens. The product water from Golf Course RO systems is directed either to an irrigation water pond or to storage tanks. Irrigation ponds are the most common. These are the ponds that the irrigation pumping systems draw their supply. The RO water which is nearly devoid of Chlorides, Sodium, and Bicarbonates mixed with the pond water and the TDS increases do to natural organics and other non-harmful substance in the pond water. In a storage tank, the RO water mixes with airborne substances and rain water.

There are GC facilities that use their RO systems to treat municipal water often because the cost to do so is lower for them than buying water from the public utility. The RO product will be very pure but once it is mixed with pond water the TDS increases to a beneficial level. Also, some GC superintendents inject additives into the RO product to meet particular growth objectives.

In conclusion, wherever a consistent supply of low cost good quality water is not present, RO systems are an excellent tool for creating irrigation quality water from otherwise unusable alternative water supplies.

Fresh Water From Clean Energy

Investment Opportunity: Through our ‘Essential Utilties’ Consortium we now offer a very unique package to world markets. Our system integrators have combined Aeronautica Windpower’s 225 and 750kW wind turbines with our Reverse Osmosis water desalinization plants. This combined system is perfect for island communities, developing markets, or high energy cost regions, and is pre-engineered to work together as a combined system in modular configurations. Using a proprietary technology that makes extra fresh water when the winds are blowing, our system uses water storage like a ‘battery’ to store the wind’s power - in the form of fresh water. Our system then prioritizes how the available wind energy can be used in running transfer and intake pumps in order to maximize savings. When no wind is available, the system instantly switches to grid power or an on-site generator. If excess wind power is still available after making extra fresh water, we put it back on the grid. Through AWD and our International Development Partners, we can offer Design/Build services only, or a complete, Turnkey operation that sells you water and excess power under water purchase agreements. We can provide a full range of services, including permitting, design, construction, financing and operations, maintenance and management functions.                                                              

Configurations Available in Modules of:

750 kW Wind/1,500m3/day Water

1,500 kW Wind/3,000m3/day Water

2,250 mW Wind/4,500 m3

Investment in the construction of new water supply and treatment infrastructure in emerging economies will become a dominant theme over the next decade.

 For more information E-Mail to jeff@wtsro.com.

WTS Desalination Plant Powered by Wind Turbines

WTS, Inc.has proposed a new fresh water production facility for an Island population off the coast of Africa.  The plant will be housed in a number of 40’ shipping containers to produce 4,500m3 of fresh water daily.  The plant will be powered by its own 750kW wind generator and backup thermal (diesel/bio diesel) generator, and tied to the island’s existing electrical grid for redundancy and continual operation for consistent supply of fresh water.  This arrangement of the desalinization plant, combined with its wind and thermal power plants, has been specifically sized in order to create a ‘modular’ configuration which can be duplicated in other areas of the country.  By using this modular approach WTS, Inc. can provide great economies for the islands in terms of scale and redundancy of design, inter-interoperability across multiple plants, cross-training of operating personnel and the supply of spare parts for immediate repairs.  The integral design also allows fresh water production to be increased during times of excess wind energy and stored, thus acting as a cost effective ‘battery’ for the wind energy.