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GROUND BROKEN ON INITIAL MICROFILTRATION PLANT
Plant Will Help Provide Water for Seawater Protection Barrier
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. – The Orange County Water District (OCWD) broke ground at its Fountain Valley site on the initial microfiltration (MF) facility. The water produced by the initial MF water treatment plant will feed existing reverse osmosis (RO) water purification membranes and ultraviolet (UV) light disinfection facilities that will provide purified water for the seawater intrusion barrier, until a new advanced water purification plant can be built as part of the Groundwater Replenishment (GWR) System. The purified water is injected along the coast into the seawater barrier to keep the Pacific Ocean out of Orange County’s groundwater basin.
This initial MF-RO-UV purification system is needed to produce water during demolition of the existing Water Factory 21 water purification plant to make room for the larger, more advanced GWR System advanced water purification plant.
Microfiltration is a membrane process used to prepare water for purification by RO purification membranes and then UV disinfection. MF is a technology that has been around since the 1940s and is also used to purify baby food, beverages, and certain medicines that cannot be heated, as well as to purify water for computer chip manufacturing.
“The Groundwater Replenishment System will eventually replace this initial MF-RO-UV plant in 2007, which in turn replaces the world renowned Water Factory 21 in Fountain Valley, Calif.,” said Denis Bilodeau, president of the Orange County Water District Board of Directors. “Water Factory 21 is an industry legend and has purified wastewater for the seawater barrier since 1975.”
The initial microfiltration plant is one of the preliminary phases of the GWR System, a joint project of OCWD and the Orange County Sanitation District. The GWR System’s purification process takes highly treated sewer water through a redundant high-tech water purification system that includes microfiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet light with hydrogen peroxide. The water produced by the advanced purification system will be of near-distilled water quality.
The GWR System will ultimately provide enough water to meet the annual needs of 140,000 families when the project goes on line in 2007. Orange County’s current water supply is made up of about 50 percent groundwater and 50 percent imported water from the Colorado River and Northern California.
Orange County Water District is a special district that was created by the California State Legislature in 1933 to maintain and manage the groundwater basin under northern and central Orange County. OCWD’s groundwater basin supplies 75% of the water needs in Anaheim, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Irvine, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Newport Beach, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Stanton, Tustin, Villa Park, Westminster, and Yorba Linda.
Orange County Sanitation District is the third largest wastewater treatment system west of the Mississippi River, serving 2.2 million residents in northern and central Orange County.
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