Dam Water Treatment Plant, Water Utility in Western Australia

Project Description:

DP8 staff were involved in the design, supply, install and commission of a large (approximately 40ML/Day) drinking water treatment plant at a Dam using ZeeWeed® Ultra-filtration (UF) Membrane Technology.  The membrane plant installed provides high quality potable water in full compliance with the Australia Drinking Water Standards.

Project Challenges and Solutions:

• Raw water from the Dam is affected by a number of water quality issues (especially after cyclones, large storms and Dam inversions), which include high suspended solids, turbidity, alkalinity, Dissolved Organic Carbon, disinfection by-products, and poor taste and odour,
• Minimising potential impact of the raw water quality fluctuations to the treatment plant designed by utilising advanced UF Membrane treatment plant to the to provide reliable and high water quality,
• Due to its small pore size, with a nominal and absolute pore sizes of 0.035 and 0.1 microns respectively, the MF membrane process ensures removal of cysts, TSS, NOMs, viruses (adsorption), colour and turbidity,
• The water treatment process train included chemical dosing, enhanced coagulation and flocculation as pre-treatment, UF filtration as the core treatment process and finally post disinfection, consisting of chloramination to minimise THM formation and fluoride dosing.
• The remoteness of the plant location dictated that the plant be designed for minimal attendance and complete remote access and control. The operation of the ZeeWeed® membrane filtration process is highly automated utilizing Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and SCADA (CITECT). The plant has full remote operation capability and dial-out facilities (alarms).