Bioreactors for water cleanup take shape
Jim Steinberg
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
02/07/2011
Work has begun on a $19 million project that will use naturally occurring microbes to clean up contaminated groundwater from Fontana to Colton for nearly 17,000 people.
Texas-based Envirogen Technologies Inc. has begun building two giant stainless-steel tanks to be used as bioreactors.
In those tanks perchlorate- eating bacteria will turn hazardous groundwater in Rialto into quality drinking water, said Todd Webster, an environmental engineer with Texas- based Envirogen Technologies Inc.
Since its detection in 1997, a plume containing perchlorate in the Rialto-Colton basin has continued to move through the aquifer, resulting in the shutdown of nearly a quarter of Rialto's 22 wells, Envirogen said in a statement about the project.
Perchlorate is known to interfere with the creation of hormones that are critical to the development of fetuses and infants.
"The technology has been proven," said Webster. "We have done it many times before. What is new is that this water will go directly into a potable water supply."
The project, planned for the site of the West Valley Water District headquarters, 855 W. Base Line Road, should break ground in May, said Tom Crowley, assistant general manager.The project - to be paid primarily by state and federal funds - is expected to produce up to 3 million gallons per day when it is completed in 2013, Crowley said.
"The outcomes of this large-scale project are going to be intensely watched around the county," Crowley said. There will be basically two parts to the project: two bioreactors to treat perchlorate-laden groundwater - now being built in Los Angeles - and a separate facility to make that treated water ready for home and business consumption.
"Fine tuning," the second phase of the cleanup, is the pioneering aspect, Crowley said.
Once that is done, the California Department of Public Health will have established guidelines that can be followed in the certification of similar plants elsewhere in the state - and around the nation.
This will speed the time frame and reduce start-up costs for future plants, Crowley said.
The project will, for the first time, provide real data - not estimates - on operational costs for a bioreactor water cleanup plant that moves its product directly into tap water, Crowley said.
The Rialto bioreactor will treat perchlorate, as well as nitrate, from groundwater at WVWD well No. 11, which has perchlorate levels of 20 parts per billion and the nearby city of Rialto's well No. 6, which has perchlorate concentrations of about 300 parts per billion.
The maximum contamination level for perchlorate in California is 6 parts per billion, although recently, one California agency published a draft recommendation that the public health goal be lowered to 1part per billion.
For several years, one of Envirogen's biologically-based water treatment systems has been cleaning up perchlorate-contaminated ground and surface water in the Henderson, Nev., area.
Treated water from that plant has significantly reduced perchlorate concentrations in Lake Mead and the lower Colorado River, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund website.
