The City of Murfreesboro Water and Sewer Department (MWSD) currently
operates a 15.6 MGD Lime Softening/Mixed Media Filtration plant to provide
drinking water to its approximately 25,000 customers. Although the plant has
operated well over the last 40 years, increasingly tight regulations coupled with
concerns over aging filtration underdrains motivated City personnel to consider
alternative filtration technologies to provide the best quality drinking water
possible to its customers. The decision was made in 2004 to rehabilitate the
existing treatment processes, and to include membrane filtration in the updated
process scheme.
City personnel and engineering consultants wanted to determine which type of
membrane filtration system best fit the City's needs, and the configuration in
which the membranes should be placed. At issue was whether to use a vacuum
driven, immersed membrane technology or a pressure driven, containerized
design. Also at issue was whether the membranes should be installed before or
after Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) filtration. In the end, the Murfreesboro
Water and Sewer Department (MWSD) selected a pressurized, containerized
membrane filtration system. In order to provide maximum flexibility for the
renovated plant, a piping system was designed that would allow the membranes
to operate either before or after GAC filtration. This should allow the treatment
plant staff to determine the advantages and disadvantages of each operational
mode on the full-scale plant, and make their own determination using real-world
data.
This paper discusses several of the factors considered during the evaluation of
both membrane technologies. The results of four months of pilot testing on the
selected system are also discussed. Includes tables, figures.