Baker, West Virginia
Hardy County operates a water treatment plant located in Baker, West Virginia. The plant was installed a number of years ago using a UTS System followed by a UF treatment system. The plant treats water supplied from a reservoir. As the years have passed, the organics in the reservoir rose to a point where it overwhelmed the treatment process. The ]plant simply could not provide a pretreated water of high enough quality to allow the membranes to perform as designed. Much of the high organics and the iron and manganese passed through the UTS and into the membrane treatment system. It caused the membrane treatment system to quickly lose flux while the TMP increased steadily. The system was operating for less than a day before it called for another CIP. The original system manufacturer examined the issues and recommended different cleaning techniques that extended the operation by a few more hours between CIP but did not restore the system operation to “like new” condition.
Water Membranes Systems was asked to evaluate the operation and make recommendations on how to restore the system to its operating capacity. Water Membranes went to work. After water quality review and treatment system evaluation, Water Membranes recommended reducing the high organics from the reservoir by using a Miex Ion Exchange System to lessen the load on the existing UTS system. A membrane module was taken off line and sent for autopsy. It confirmed the membranes were irreparably damaged and no amount of cleaning would restore the membranes to like new condition. Water Membranes Systems recommended the County replace all of the membranes with Dow (now Dupont) XP membranes. The membranes were replaced and the system was restored to its design operating capacity.
