Water Security: Provides a source of water that is internally controlled.
- Provides an internal source of water for cleaning, cooling and irrigation.
- Ideal for applications where customers want to expand but do not have enough water supplies.
- Provides security against droughts or new regulations.
Waste Treatment: Provides environmentally appropriate waste disposal.
- An alternative to direct land discharge and pond treatment. Removes problematic compounds like salts that cannot be removed in ponds or discharged. Prolonged salt disposal reduces soil permeability and productivity. Sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) is a measure of the potential damage salt will do to soil.
- Provides constant treatment capacity regardless of weather.
- Exceeds all discharge regulations.
Economics: Costs less than truck hauling from most locations.
- Estimated cost is 5 cents/gal to treat for industrial reuse or disposal.
- Assumes 15 year project life.
Environment:
- Eliminates the potential for damage from environmental discharge of wastewater.
- Eliminates salt discharge to land.
- Protects local water ways from land discharged wastewater.
- Manages smell and odor issues from land and pond treatment.
Land Value : Ponds take up space. Space that could be returned to production. In locations with high land values systems can quickly pay for themselves.
Regulatory Compliance: Recycling wastewater insures system will meet all future regulations.
- Clean Water Act authorizes fines.
- Discharge permits are required.
- It can be expected that regulations are going to tighten in the future.
Energy/Carbon: Offers benefits over truck haul applications.
- Recycling 85% of wastewater will reduce truck hauling by 85%. This will reduce CO2 emissions by 85%.
- Byproduct treated at the Oakland sewage recovery facility will produce electricity and improve salinity of Oakland treatment facility discharge to San Francisco Bay.
- Methane generated from competing wastewater lagoons produces no energy and is a 20 times worse green house gas than CO2 .
Design Innovation: Modular design reduces installation cost.
- Put the system where the wastewater is generated to reduce installation plumbing costs.
- Lease crush capacity seasonally.