HomeMy WebLinkAboutWWR_Meeting_3_2_21_08.pdfWaste Water Treatment Sub‐Group Meeting
Date, Time: January 21, 2008, 6:00‐8:00pm
Location: Upstairs Conference Room City Hall
Present: Mark Johnson, Scott Bischke, Hattie Baker, Brian Heaston (City
Engineer), Rick Moroney (WTP superintendant), Rick Hixson (City Engineer)
Notes Prepared by: Hattie Baker
Introductions
Rick Hixson: Talk about potential for generating energy from hydraulic head we
have in the system. WWTP is viable. Common thread/problem to both and that is
the upfront cost of installing the necessary equipment that you need to generate
is expensive. We’re always looking at the payback. Until recently it hasn’t been
there. But we do have a head. The water system in Bozeman is basically 100%
gravity. Lyman was first. By and away it flows by gravity into the plant. We have
several 100 feet of head that we could build inline turbines to generate electricity.
The breakout cost is about 7/10 of dollar per Kwh.
Scott: What kind of turbine?
Rick H: We could put them anywhere the head is available or most convenient.
It’s a matter of head you need some residual plant so that there is room for water
to go through the process. You don’t want to use it all up. There is a lot of head
lost in the turbine. We’re going to change processes when we build this new
plant. It will be a reverse filtration process. I have always been an advocate for
gravity. I don’t want to start pumping water in Bozeman. Goal is to have it up and
running by 2013.
Scott: Have there been any energy calculations relative to old and ne plants?
Rick H: We are still in the preliminary stages and haven’t hired a consultant. We
would like to incorporate some LEED ideals into the building.
Scott: What is the current treatment process?
Rick H: Direct filtration, chlorination and fluorination and corrosion control for the
distribution. We need to adhere to the lead and copper rule. The new one will be
a membrane ultra filtration.
Rick M: you can get it through your source through gravity or through another
source but we’re not sure which one. What we have now is not energy efficient
but it is because we have to heat the building.
Mark: I like the idea of separating out the heat and if possible offsetting the use
with green energy.
Rick H: We would like to explore the potential for a turbine. If there is money we
can get that’s what we need. The other potential is if we replace the Mystic Lake
Dam. It was dangerous before b/c it was unsuitable rock and they breached it in a
controlled fashion in 1985.
Mark: What would be accomplished by rebuilding?
Mark: We still have water rights and we could generate electricity. We could
incorporate penstock and turbine into dam.
Scott: What is a penstock?
Rick H: A steel tube that caries water to a turbine.
Mark: How phenomenal would the cost of the dam be? As we put the plan
together we can say what is the low lying fruit?
Rick H: This commission has expressed interest in that Dam. If you have fire in the
drainage that dam can serve as a settling basin and it stores water for future use.
The old Dam is gone so this would be establishing a new Dam. We’ve had a
feasibility study done that has identified a few places. It would not be in the same
place.
Scott: Do you know how high it would bring the Dam?
Rick M: It’s 161 feet. The new dam site would be near the outhouse.
Rick H: I would ask you to consider this. If you want to camp at Hyalite you better
go on Thursday b/c it’s very popular. When you look across to Elephant Mountain
and Black Mountain. Mystic Lake would be exactly the same once it was built. The
trails would go around the lake. It doesn’t fill valley top to bottom. It’ll be smaller
than Hyalite.
Hattie: Have you explored any grants?
Rick H: No until the electricity costs go down it is not worthwhile.
Mark: Could you explain pay off calculations?
Rick H: I don’t know all of the details of it. But when we replace Hyalite
transmission mane we replaced 20,000 feet of pipe. $11,000 tax abatement takes
up four hours of debate but no one noticed we replaced 5 miles of pipe that costs
5 million dollars. We took a good run at it and it had a 30 year payback but it
didn’t pan out.
Mark: Until the technology improves?
Rick H: No technology hasn’t changed that much but the electric costs are
increasing.
Scott: One thing this group can do is maybe its 250K and the payback 15 instead
of thirty and this goal of reducing carbon output may help push project within
commission.
Rick H: There is no more perfect way than to generate electricity than with a
hydraulic turbine.
Rick M: Once they’re installed there is almost no maintenance.
Scott: If we were to go over these and they match our goals would your fist be the
Hyalite Turbine and then Mystic?
Mark: Hyalite would be the most valuable to encourage and Lyman would be the
second and Dam would be the third?
Rick M: I think Hyalite would be the easiest. Lyman would be a smaller turbine.
Scott: Would you have to build transmission? Would we have available to us the
report for the feasibility study?
Rick H: yes.
Mark: You were saying the generators would take the pressure away?
Rick H: Once it’s in the pipe the opportunities for using pressure are gone.
Scott: Turbine at Hyalite, Turbine at Lyman, Mystic Dam? But we also talked about
WTP being new but with respect with carbon reduction what about our group
providing recommendations to the commission? Are there any specifics that you
would like to see?
Rick H: I think the building itself is a huge energy drain. We have to do better
when we design this new plant. That water is cold all year round and millions of
gallons of water are in the building every day.
Rick M: there are some engineering calculations that I would like explained on
heating WTP. Even if water is running at 1.2C but if it’s running at 20 below
Fahrenheit isn’t water heating building?
Scott: Are there throughput issues?
Rick M: I think at the end of the day if you use less water you are going to use less
energy even if it is a gravity system.
Rick H: If you look per capita if we create more water someone will want it.
However water you conserve that’s how much you make available for more
development. Per capita cost will go down but WTP cost will not.
Rick M: I agree. I wonder where the values will go when their looking at totally
emptying the rivers. Are people going to want that or are they going to say we’re
done?
Brian H: Rick had a good segway when he talked about the per capita and that
were we’re focusing our efforts. John Alston is taking care of leaks. The industry
standard is beneath ten percent and we are about 12 percent. That’s
unaccounted water which is customer meters versus meters at the plant. John
purchased leak detections. He is responsible for water and sewer. My job is to
focus on the demand side conservation measures such as reducing per capita
water measures. This is a part time duty in addition to my other duties. Rick
Moroney is my direct supervisor. The first conservation measure we are looking at
is looking at rebates for toilets. All of the old fixtures around town before 1992
will be replaced form 3.5 gallon flush to 1.6 gallons per flush. Some use more than
that.
Scott: You said rebates and this says voluntary to me.
Brian: Yes it is. There will be a public outreach and March 22nd will be the roll out.
Mark: This would be a great project for our CCCC (Citizens concerned for Climate
Change) organization.
Brian: March 22nd is world water day. Wal‐Mart will have a big event that day.
There will be classroom style exercises.
Mark: Would you like me to put this name out to the group? I can put it out to our
list serve for the conservation non‐profits.
Brian: That would be great.
Scott: Are you working with WET? I know a few people there.
Brian: After article in paper we were contacted by Project WET.
Bourjoum(spelling?)Expeditions has put together the greater Gallatin toilet round‐
up. We’ll kick that off on March 22nd as well. You can get a toilet for wholesale
cost ‐150bucks in addition to the rebate.
Rick M: We have been working on water conservation budget for 4‐5 years. We
had 50K and commission took out 40K but last year commission did not take out.
We have 50K for the next fiscal year.
Mark: We‘re doing the best we can to give best effort. Brian what are the next
conservation steps? Leak detection? Toilets/ What else?
Brian: We have always had leak detection. We are on with Water Sense and we
are the first on Montana. The hold gist behind this is to promote market for high
efficiency standards to certify certain products. Laundry machines will be the next
thing. Rebates would be helpful. CUWCC is a great conservation resource.
Rick M: We do have water conservation rate system. Tier system rate structure.
It’s coming through their meter. It applies to Residential users only not
Commercial. We think it should apply to commercial as well. The designer said
you can’t put it on the commercial system. I was advocating water budget based
inclining block rate.
Brian: It does take a lot of time to determine the baseline for the water rate. Las
Vegas will pay you $1.50 square foot to remove turf and replaced it with
xeriscape. The savings they have realized through turf replacement is trillions of
gallons of water.
Scott: We do native gas in our house by design and yet you pay x amount to be on
the system and it’s a lot more than what we use.
Mark: The rate actually just went down.
Brian: There is no incentive for high users at the moment. You design your plants
by peaks. Summer its 13MGD (Million Gallons per Day) and winter is 4MGD.
Scott: Does it bother you that city offices they sell bottled water? The finance
people do that.
Hattie: We sent out a survey to all city employees and we found that 90 percent
of the 200 repsonses did not purchase bottled water. Most of our buildings do not
sell bottled water.
Scott: I must be thinking of the County Court House.
Rick: In Bozeman there is Lehrkind and they take the water from behind the
railroad tracks where their located filter it with a regular carbon filter and sell it as
Aquafina.
Brian: You talked about reducing CO2 for city buildings. We are going to be
switching out buildings. I think the city should take lead in this renovation. I just
came back from a conference that talked about water efficiency and it doesn’t
carry a lot of weight. High efficiency or Water Sense labels for all city buildings.
Rick: We could upgrade building codes and require new construction have HET
(High Efficiency Toilets) and water efficient washing machine. This is the best
available technology on sale.
Brian: Have you looked at studies showing the embedded energy involved in
water efficiencies? I put a message into alliance for water efficiency and they are
a clearing house. They are big on WWTP side. The energy efficiency block grants .
I think the next hot topic will be water efficiency after global warming.
Rick M: The bigger water utilities have their own requirements. They won’t hook
you up unless you meet the requirements. In Cheyenne to plant sod you need a
permit from board of utilities. They are starting a reclaim water system. I think
the replacement plant will be more efficient b/c the commission has directed us
not to build anything that is not efficient.
Mark: We would like to bounce any water treatment recommendations off you
before we turn it in. We will submit anything we will propose to you first there
won’t be any surprises. We want this to be acceptable to everyone.
Adjourn: 8:00 PM