A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Lessons for the desalination industry to consider from municipal wastewater effluent permitting to successfully navigate concentrate discharge issues
Environmental concerns with the discharge of seawater desalination concentrate into coastal marine environments lead to significant project costs and risks for permits, outfall pipelines, diffusion devices and perhaps even mitigation. In fact, an entire desalination project could be at risk without careful and comprehensive examination of how concentrate discharge can impact an ecosystem. Government agencies and regulators continue to seek information about the environmental impact of concentrate discharge to formulate regulations and permitting processes. Water districts that include seawater desalination in their strategic water security plans are exposed to high levels of risk because of unknowns associated with obtaining concentrate discharge permits. All participants recognize the need for more robust and defensible scientific information in this area. They face a challenging mix of general regulatory precedents which may or may not apply within the specific regional ecosystem of their project. It is useful to remember that a variety of effluents are routinely discharged into coastal marine environments in extremely large quantities under compliant discharge permits. For example, high temperature, once-through power plant cooling water and low density (fresh) municipal wastewater effluents are discharged with recognized and acceptable levels of environmental impact. Of course, obtaining discharge permits for these effluents can involve a lengthy and expensive process. Nevertheless, field-tested bodies of scientific sampling and interdisciplinary ecosystem monitoring protocols have been tailored for these coastal effluents to ensure a reasonably predictable and therefore less risky, permitting process with a high degree of confidence that this process will result in acceptable protection of the ecosystem. This paper presents ecosystem assessment methods and lessons from studies involving permits for municipal wastewater effluent impacts in coastal marine environments. These studies involve assessments that were conducted for two distinct environments - a coastal ocean outfall in Massachusetts Bay and a shallow, near shore effluents in Jamaica Bay, NY. While effluent characteristics from the treatment plants are not the same as those from a desalination plant (low density fresh wastewater versus high density desalination concentrate), the process of reconciling environmental considerations, stakeholder concerns and permitting hurdles offers pertinent insights that can provide a constructive framework for permitting coastal desalination plants. Environment issues of concern, assessment approaches, and sampling and monitoring practices relevant to understanding the transport, fate, and environmental impacts of high density discharges are discussed in this paper including: (1) water quality studies, (2) hydrodynamic simulations to map discharge impact zone (3) potential impacts to benthic organisms, fish and habitat, (4) physical and biochemical studies of sediment and (5) methods to establish baseline metrics to compare pre- and post-outfall ecosystem condition.
Lessons for the desalination industry to consider from municipal wastewater effluent permitting to successfully navigate concentrate discharge issues
Environmental concerns with the discharge of seawater desalination concentrate into coastal marine environments lead to significant project costs and risks for permits, outfall pipelines, diffusion devices and perhaps even mitigation. In fact, an entire desalination project could be at risk without careful and comprehensive examination of how concentrate discharge can impact an ecosystem. Government agencies and regulators continue to seek information about the environmental impact of concentrate discharge to formulate regulations and permitting processes. Water districts that include seawater desalination in their strategic water security plans are exposed to high levels of risk because of unknowns associated with obtaining concentrate discharge permits. All participants recognize the need for more robust and defensible scientific information in this area. They face a challenging mix of general regulatory precedents which may or may not apply within the specific regional ecosystem of their project. It is useful to remember that a variety of effluents are routinely discharged into coastal marine environments in extremely large quantities under compliant discharge permits. For example, high temperature, once-through power plant cooling water and low density (fresh) municipal wastewater effluents are discharged with recognized and acceptable levels of environmental impact. Of course, obtaining discharge permits for these effluents can involve a lengthy and expensive process. Nevertheless, field-tested bodies of scientific sampling and interdisciplinary ecosystem monitoring protocols have been tailored for these coastal effluents to ensure a reasonably predictable and therefore less risky, permitting process with a high degree of confidence that this process will result in acceptable protection of the ecosystem. This paper presents ecosystem assessment methods and lessons from studies involving permits for municipal wastewater effluent impacts in coastal marine environments. These studies involve assessments that were conducted for two distinct environments - a coastal ocean outfall in Massachusetts Bay and a shallow, near shore effluents in Jamaica Bay, NY. While effluent characteristics from the treatment plants are not the same as those from a desalination plant (low density fresh wastewater versus high density desalination concentrate), the process of reconciling environmental considerations, stakeholder concerns and permitting hurdles offers pertinent insights that can provide a constructive framework for permitting coastal desalination plants. Environment issues of concern, assessment approaches, and sampling and monitoring practices relevant to understanding the transport, fate, and environmental impacts of high density discharges are discussed in this paper including: (1) water quality studies, (2) hydrodynamic simulations to map discharge impact zone (3) potential impacts to benthic organisms, fish and habitat, (4) physical and biochemical studies of sediment and (5) methods to establish baseline metrics to compare pre- and post-outfall ecosystem condition.
Lessons for the desalination industry to consider from municipal wastewater effluent permitting to successfully navigate concentrate discharge issues
McArdle, John (author) / Boyle, Jeanine (author) / Hunt, Carlton (author) / Gulbransen, Tom (author)
2010
10 Seiten, 4 Bilder, 4 Tabellen, 6 Quellen
Conference paper
Storage medium
English
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