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Ways
of Acquiring High-Quality Drought-Proof Water
Groundwater
Replenishment Systems, which are used in Orange
County California, provide a new method of
acquiring high quality drought-proof water.
In addition, it also improves the
quality of the water in the Orange County
groundwater basin by mixing the purified water
re-use water with the existing groundwater,
which lowers the mineral content of Orange
County's water.
By lowering the amount of minerals in
the ground water this also reduces the hardness
of the water thus decreasing the maintenance
costs and extends the life of water heaters,
boilers, cooling towers, and plumbing fixtures
for Orange County's residents.
Reclaimed
water undergoes an advanced treatment process,
which includes two membrane filtration systems,
microfiltration and reverse osmosis
disinfection.
Microfiltration also referred to as MF
is a low-pressure membrane filtration process
that removes small-suspended particles such as
bacteria and other materials from the water.
Microfiltration offers the best
efficient preparation of water for reverse
osmosis. This process is also used in commercial industries as well as
in the pharmaceutical industries to sterilize
medicines, which cannot be heated.
Once
the water has been through the microfiltration
process it then goes through reverse osmosis or
RO. Reverse
osmosis is a high-pressure membrane filtration
process, which forces the water through the
molecular structure of several sheets of thin
plastic membranes.
These plastic membranes are so tiny that
they are able to remove contaminants from the
water such as salts, viruses, pesticides, and
inorganic and most organic molecules as well as
other harmful contaminants including bacteria.
The
water is then treated exposed to ultraviolet
light and hydrogen peroxide, purifying the
water. When the now filtered water goes through ultraviolet
disinfection, it is exposed to ultraviolet UV
light, which disinfects the water.
In addition, the UV light is combined
with hydrogen peroxide creating an advanced
oxidation reaction that completely removes any
remaining compounds in water. This is down by breaking down any remaining compounds into
harmless compounds such as carbon dioxide and
water. The end- product of this multiple barrier process is
ultra-pure quality water.
The purified water is then either pumped
to recharge facilities or to injection wells
where the purified water then seeps into the
ground, mixing with the groundwater.
In fact, the water that is produced from
direct potable re-use technology is cleaner
than the water that now flows from your tap
this is because the EPA has set standards for
approximately 90 contaminants that are
permitted in certain levels in our tap water.
For a complete list of all the possible
contaminants, you can view the EPA's standards,
and the possible source of each contaminant
along with its possible health effects, at www.epa.gov/safewater/mcl.html.
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