Disinfection Guidelines for Satellite Water Recycling Facilities

Water reuse regulations or guidelines are developed at the state level in the U.S. Where chlorine is used to disinfect recycled water for uses such as the irrigation of open access landscape irrigation sites, most states require tertiary-treated water. When satellite water recycling facilities are utilized for applications that require tertiary-treated recycled water, membrane bioreactors (MBRs) are often a preferred treatment process. However, a lack of data on real-world performance of MBR facilities has precluded the potential to lower CT (total chlorine residual times modal contact time) disinfection requirements imposed by California and some other states. The project develops disinfection guidelines for MBR effluents when free chlorine is used as the disinfectant. The study included data collection from 38 satellite facilities that use MBR processes, with intensive sampling at nine of those facilities and two MBR pilot systems.

Originally funded as WERF project Reuse-08-07.