The Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) awarded a US$ 2-m contract to USFilter for a 4.5-mgd reverse osmosis (RO) treatment plant at the district's new Perris Basin Desalination Facility in Sun City, California, USA.
The US$ 13.5-m facility, designed by the consultancy CH2M Hill, will provide drinking water for 5,500 families.
Groundwater has been used for agricultural irrigation for many years, but increasing salinity levels reduced and even eliminated groundwater use in most of the basin. For this reason, the EMWD selected desalination to generate an additional supply of water from its brackish groundwater and to manage salinity for the entire basin.
The system is scheduled to begin operations in January 2005. It will treat groundwater containing up to 7,000 ppm of TDS using a treatment process consisting of scale inhibitor and acid feed, cartridge filtration, two 2.25-mgd, low-pressure RO membrane systems, decarbonator for CO2 reduction, followed by pH correction and disinfection of permeate.
The US consultancy CDM, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will install the RO system. USFilter is based in Palm Desert, California.
