Political will is an important factor in
determining whether the reclamation
plant project will be a success, the
report cites. A steering committee
should be established before a
Water Reclamation Plant (WRP) is
constructed and it should review the
different catchments and sources
to the plant and establish proper
monitoring
protocols.
Thorough
Environmental Impact Assessment
(EIA) studies should be completed and
the reduced return flow factored into
the feasibility of the WRP. A minimum
return flow to the environment can
compete against upgrading the WRP in
the future.
Financial feasibility must be
established. It is also important to take
into consideration that many WRPs
are built during extreme droughts and
that the production capacity of the
plant may reduce significantly once
conventional water sources are no
longer depleted.
Raw water
The report outlines that a steering
committee should be established to
review water quality results on an
annual basis and catchments should be
reviewed and verified annually to see if
the monitoring programme addresses
all water quality aspects. A catchment
(including all the sources to the Waste
Water Treatment Works (WWTW) and
WRP) status should be completed
once a year to identify parameters of
concern and ensure that the plants
are prepared to treat the influent they
receive to the required standard, it
says. While ammonia is not effectively
removed by reverse osmosis (RO),
this should be kept in mind, the report
cautions, with ammonia preferably
Water Sewage & Effluent July/August 2017
9
Scheme feasibility
various unit treatment processes in
the plant, and compliance of the final
water quality with adopted local and
international norms and standards.
Because the final water at issue in
this study is produced from reclaimed
wastewater, the focus was on health-
related constituents and parameters,
which, for the larger part, have not yet
been included in local water quality
standards. The intended testing of the
proposed monitoring systems at full-
scale reuse plants was not performed
in this project. since the high cost
of such work would have exceeded
the resources of the project. The
following guidelines were drawn up
based on the research that was done
for this project, and are applicable
to the water quality monitoring and
management of direct and indirect
potable reuse schemes in southern
Africa.
Poorly managed water resources are exacerbating the effects of the ongoing drought in South Africa.