Treatment of both raw water and wastewater can minimize the impacts of population growth
Across the United States, many cities and towns are expanding rapidly, driven by economic expansion, population growth, and migration. While urban growth brings new opportunities, it also places increasing pressure on municipal water supplies. As demand for clean water rises, municipalities must strike a delicate balance between expanding infrastructure and ensuring the long-term protection of water sources. They must implement proactive measures to prevent urban expansion from compromising water quality — which can lead to drinking water contamination, water shortages, and escalating treatment costs.
Urbanization can affect the quality of source water in several ways. Municipalities may turn to alternative raw water sources such as wastewater reuse, desalination, and advanced water treatment technologies to meet the shortfall. Overextraction of groundwater can lead to aquifer depletion and in coastal areas can lead to saltwater intrusion, reducing the quality of water and making aquifers unusable without additional desalination treatment processes.
As cities grow, wastewater generation rises accordingly. Harmful contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides, nitrates, and pharmaceuticals can enter surface water and groundwater when industrial, agricultural, and municipal effluent is discharged into the environment, posing both an environmental and human health risk. Urban expansion also leads to increased stormwater runoff from impermeable surfaces such as roads and pavement, carrying potentially harmful pollutants such as oil, sediment, and microplastics into reservoirs and aquifers.
Municipal Strategies for Source Water Protection
The good news is that municipalities can implement several strategies to overcome these challenges. Some mitigation measures include:
- Diversifying water supply sources: By investing in desalination technologies, municipalities can tap into seawater and brackish groundwater, reducing their reliance on freshwater sources while ensuring a sustainable supply of potable water. They can also use advanced treatment technologies that enable wastewater reuse for nonpotable applications such as irrigation, cooling, and groundwater recharge, reducing the freshwater demand.
- Advanced water treatment solutions: Employing advanced wastewater treatment technologies such as dissolved air flotation (DAF) and membrane bioreactors (MBR) can improve water quality by efficiently removing pollutants from wastewater before it is discharged, protecting source waters from contamination. Advanced water treatment technologies, including reverse osmosis, can remove chemicals known as PFAS and other emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and microplastics that are increasingly found in water sources.
- Ongoing monitoring and risk management: To ensure high water quality and reduce the risk of contamination, municipal water treatment plants should have continuous monitoring systems that provide real-time data on water quality. This allows contaminants to be detected early so that appropriate action can be taken to prevent contamination of drinking water sources. Smart technologies such as data analytics and artificial intelligence can help municipalities optimize treatment processes, improve efficiency, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards.
Public-Private Partnerships
Investing in alternative and advanced treatment technologies is often a challenge, especially for municipalities that lack the technical capacity or can’t afford the capital outlay. However, these limitations can be overcome by outsourcing treatment operations to a team of water professionals in the private sector, which can enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and ensure water quality meets stringent regulatory standards.
Seven Seas Water Group’s Water-as-a-Service® (WaaS®) model offers an innovative financing solution that gives municipalities access to advanced treatment solutions, allowing them to tap into alternative water supplies without the burden of upfront capital investment. With WaaS®, lack of expertise or capital is no longer a barrier to access. Seven Seas will build or renovate a plant that meets the desired capacity and quality requirements. Municipalities only pay for the volume of water or wastewater treated.
Case Study: Leeward Estates, Turks and Caicos Islands
Desalination and water reuse, as implemented at Leeward Estates in Turks and Caicos, offer sustainable solutions to water scarcity challenges, especially in coastal communities.
To overcome the challenge of water scarcity and to protect the sensitive marine environment, the developer of Leeward Estates — a residential, resort, and mega yacht marina complex in Turks and Caicos — opted for a complete water cycle solution that included desalination and water reuse. The reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant can treat 250,000 GPD (946 m3/d), while the MBR wastewater treatment plant can treat 50,000 GPD (189 m3/d), recycling water for reuse as irrigation water to maintain the resort’s landscaping.
Seven Seas also has a long history of providing affordable and sustainable water treatment solutions to communities in both the U.S. Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands through the implementation of WaaS® partnerships. By making state-of-the-art desalination technology affordable and accessible, these communities now have a sustainable supply of safe drinking water.
Ensuring a Sustainable Water Future
As urban populations continue to grow, it is becoming more critical than ever to proactively protect source waters. Municipalities must embrace alternative water sources, implement cutting-edge treatment technologies, and foster strategic partnerships to ensure long-term water security.
Seven Seas specializes in providing scalable, cost-effective solutions for sustainable water and wastewater management. By integrating innovative technologies and strategic partnerships, municipalities can secure their water future while protecting vital natural resources. Contact Seven Seas to learn more about our treatment technologies and our financing solutions.
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