The Long Beach Water Department (LBWD), similar to many Southern California
utilities, has been facing the issue of decreased potable water supplies. Because of its
location, the City of Long Beach is ideally situated to take advantage of desalinated
seawater as a source of drinking water. However, the primary barrier to seawater
desalination has been its relatively high cost as compared to other available water
sources. One method of reducing the operational cost for seawater desalination being
proposed by LBWD is through a dual-staged nanofiltration (NF) membrane process,
which has the potential of lowering the overall energy required. In this configuration,
permeate from the first stage is treated by the second stage membranes in order to
produce potable water. This paper presents the data derived from the initial pilotscale
tests conducted by LBWD. Includes 10 references, tables, figures.