The Alameda County Water District (ACWD) draws from multiple water sources to meet
customer demands, including desalinating brackish groundwater by reverse osmosis (RO)
treatment. Together with CDM, ACWD just completed design of an expansion to
Brackish Groundwater RO Desalination Facility that doubled the capacity to 12.5 mgd.
The facility treats brackish groundwater with recovery rates of up to 80%. The treatment
facility includes cartridge filters, chemical conditioning of the RO feed water,
desalination by low pressure RO, air stripping to remove carbon dioxide (decarbonation),
and miscellaneous chemical post treatment. The existing RO process includes two RO
trains, each with 42:21 arrays. Several factors were considered during the facility expansion design phase, including:
manganese fouling, experience with the existing membranes including operation with
improving feed water quality TDS, treated water quality goals, reduced feed water acid
use, and RO feed pump selection to cover variable RO recovery rates and feed water
TDS. The design also incorporated other desired features including energy recovery
turbines, centralized pumping to pressurize the feed water to the four manifolded RO
skids, V-port ball valves and globe valves to minimize noise and cavitation, and
provisions to allow the periodic chlorination of the decarbonators to minimize biogrowth. Includes tables, figures.