Large scale water treatment system optimization generates significant cost savings

KEMRON, under contract to USEPA, reengineered the water treatment process at the Mississippi Phosphate Corporation Superfund Site to accelerate treatment and maximize throughput. Water management volumes from low pH (<2) leachate and rainfall coming in contact with the gypsum stacks on this 400 acre site exceeds 1.5 billion gallons since KEMRON took over management. One inch of rain fall generates 9 million gallons of low pH contact water. The existing treatment process was able to effectively treat 1.5 million gallons a day. Through a series of modifications to include construction of mixing and settling ponds, KEMRON increased the treatment capacity to 4 million gallons per day.

KEMRON further reengineered the treatment process by installing an in-line mixing operation that introduces spent lime slurry from the mechanical plant into the low pH water before piping the lime slurry three miles to a series of mixing and settling ponds. This provided a marked improvement to pH adjustment through a much shorter treatment time frame further increasing overall efficiency by 20%. Cost savings in reduced quick lime are $22,000 per month. Savings on total treatment costs are in excess of $2.5M per year.