Ocala Water Resources
USA
Earnest explains , “ We ’ re 100 % reuse on our water and 100 % on our Bio-solids . Basically in waste water , after the treatment you separate the water from the solids so you have reclaimed water and you have what we call bio-solids and we ’ re able to recycle our reclaimed water 100 % meaning we put it back on the ground at golf courses , baseball fields soccer complexes , and parks and a few residential re-use areas . The Bio-solids we actually treat to “ AA ” standards and we ’ re able to sell it to a fertilize company . Any water that comes through the treatment plant we ’ re able to recycle 100 % so we don ’ t waste anything .”
New Reclamation Facility Now that the waste water Ocala Water Resources produces is 100 % recycled , the new goal is to focus on spring protection and the removal of nitrogen from wastewater . Ocala Water Resources has ( 3 ) three Wastewater Reclamation Facilities ( WRFs ) and though WRF # 3 was built in 2003 , with some modifications in 2012 , it can remove nitrogen down to the level of AWT standards that the state approves of , the other two WRFs do not . This prompted Ocala Utilities ’ current project to convert WRF # 2 , a 6.5 million gallons per day facility , into a location that also removes nitrogen at a level that meets the state requirements .
Ocala Water Resources reached out to a company called OVIVO , who originally assisted in the design of WRF # 3 , to confirm if WRF # 2 could also be modified to remove nitrogen . OVIVO evaluated the plant and determined that it could be altered to remove nitrogen , and not only that , they could do it without having to build a new treatment system , which had been made by a previous engineering firm working with the city .
“ We started working with [ OVIVO ] directly and put together this project and we ’ re able to save over a million dollars in design services by doing it in house and by converting the existing basins to a “ hot-dog ” type Carrousel treatment design . Our consulting engineers were estimating a cost of around $ 18 million to do everything and when the project went out to bid it came
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