COSTS AND PERFORMANCE OF ADVANCED WASTEWATER TREATMENT TECHNOLOGIES IN MEETING NATIONAL TOXICS RULE, NUTRIENT CRITERIA, AND TMDL REQUIREMENTS

Wastewater treatment requirements are becoming more restrictive, and Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTWs) are increasingly finding themselves faced with the need to evaluate the costs and performance of new tertiary and advanced wastewater treatment processes in order to assess attainability with future federal, state and local regulatory requirements.These regulatory concerns include the reduction of heavy metals and trace organics to meet the new National Toxics Rule (NTR) requirements, and the reduction of forms of nitrogen and phosphorous to meet the national Nutrient Criteria. Also, the U.S. EPA Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program has identified over 300,000 river and shore miles, and over 5 million acres of lakes in the U.S. that do not met water quality objectives (Brady, D. Chief of Watershed Branch, U.S. EPA; Presentation to NRC Committee, January 25, 2001). The TMDL program findings add additional pressure to POTWs to evaluate new and emerging wastewater treatment technologies to reduce both conventional and nonconventional pollutants.This paper summarizes the latest advanced/tertiary wastewater treatment technologies available; and their associated capital costs, operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, and pollutant reduction performance. This evaluation of advanced wastewater treatment technologies was recently developed for some of the largest wastewater agencies discharging to some of the most sensitive receiving waters in the Western United States, including Sacramento, CA., and the Cities of Reno and Sparks, NV.