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Recycled water for heavy industry and preventing sea water intrusion

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Abstract

The project was established to evaluate options for diverting locally available treated wastewater into the Superficial Aquifer in the Cockburn Sound catchment to raise groundwater levels, improve non-potable water supplies and security for heavy industry, reverse seawater intrusion, and improve the condition of groundwater-throughflow wetlands that have been seriously impacted by lower groundwater levels in recent decades. While answering a local non-potable water need, the project aimed to help answer state-wide questions, thereby facilitating more widespread adoption of MAR in areas containing residential developments. These areas are losing throughflow wetlands of considerable economic, environmental and social value. They are also experiencing a loss of water for irrigating public open space as well as domestic gardens, the formation of acid sulphate soils as previously wet areas dry, and the gradual accumulation of salts in poorly flushed aquifers as is becoming evident as the climate dries and groundwater gradients fall in south west Western Australia.
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... Beenyup receives predominantly Superficial and confined aquifer groundwater having the highest salinity (Figure 4-1). Salinity levels of the treated wastewater at Kwinana (60 mS/m) were generally below the 25 th percentile of the ambient groundwater so would reduce salinity after addition (Donn and McFarlane 2015). ...
... Total nitrogen concentrations in the oxidation ditch plant at Kwinana are only about a quarter that of the two advanced secondary plants (Figure 4-2). The Total N of treated wastewater at Kwinana was almost 2.5 times that of ambient groundwater but less than that in areas impacted by horticulture, industrial pollution and drying wetlands (Donn and McFarlane 2015). Total P in the treated wastewater is about ten times that of the ambient groundwater but the experience of treated wastewater additions at Halls Head (Toze et al. 2002(Toze et al. , 2004, the Floreat Infiltration Galleries (Bekele et al. 2011) andat Gordon Road (Pavlov 2015) show that levels reduce rapidly in areas containing limestone. ...
...  Median suspended solids at Subiaco is much higher but may be similar after the upgrade;  Total N is like Woodman Point, lower than Beenyup and more than twice Kwinana which uses oxidation ditch technology;  Total P is like Woodman Point and Kwinana, and less than Beenyup;  As for all other WWTPs, chemical oxygen demand is much higher than biological oxygen demand, indicating that denitrification may not be possible after MAR unless a source of carbon is added to the water;  Salinity at Subiaco is like Beenyup because the northern drinking water sources have a higher salinity, coming predominantly from unconfined and confined groundwater sources. The only heavy metals that exceeded ANZECC guidelines for fresh water at Subiaco were copper and zinc (GHD 2016), the same as at Woodman Point, Kwinana and Beenyup (Donn and McFarlane 2015). Heavy metal concentrations are mainly affected by the type of industries in wastewater plant catchments and about 80% end up in the sewerage sludge. ...
Technical Report
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Examines the potential to use treated wastewater for managed aquifer recharge in the Perth-Peel region of Western Australia
... The centres accelerated the development of guidelines and the scientific and technical understanding and economics of reuse, including MAR in Western Australia (Bekele 2015a;McFarlane 2015). But most cities lacked suitable aquifers, expertise and a history of using groundwater and/or the time to develop alterative schemes before the Millennium Drought ended and normal water supplies were again more reliable and low cost. ...
Technical Report
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The potential for managed aquifer recharge in the Perth-Peel region of Western Australia. includes a discussion on third-pipe systems and direct piping of treated wastewater to add to aquifers
... One of the methods of wastewater treatment is membrane filtration. Some membrane filters are Micro filter, Ultra filter and Nano filter (McFarlane, 2015). ...
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