Reducing Salty Chloride in Wastewater

Plan to truck brine out as powder as an alternative to deep well injection

Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District officials would reduce brine through a treatment system and then truck it out of the area in five to 10 loads a day under a plan released Wednesday outlining an alternative to deep well injection.

Asked the cost of the additional step for reducing salty chloride in Santa Clarita Valley wastewater, district spokesman Steven Highter replied: "We can build this within the same rate structure already in place."

That rate structure proposes spreading the cost of chloride reduction among the district's customers — every home and business in the area whose toilets flush into the sewer system. Property owners pay their sewer fees on their property taxes.

Estimates in November put the cost of chloride reduction at $130 million by employing a system of injecting brine deep underground, rather than reducing its volume and trucking it out of the valley.

And as for where the brine would be trucked, Highter said a location has yet to be selected. It would come from the Valencia Water Reclamation Plant on The Old Road near Rye Canyon Road, where the chloride removal is scheduled to occur.

West Side objections

The deep well injection system for disposing of chloride removed from wastewater was approved last October after a series of public meetings on options for meeting state regulators' water quality demands. Deep well injection was part of the multiple-step option selected by Sanitation District board members.

Residents of the West Side communities, however, vehemently objected to deep well injection when a site for the wells was selected at Tournament Players Club Valencia in Westridge. District board members responded by assuring residents they would choose another option for getting rid of the brine.

The alternative was outlined in a plan released Wednesday called the Brine Screening Analysis, which is scheduled for discussion by the board May 20.

It calls for using high-tech machines and state-of-the-art technology to reduce the amount of brine the district would need to dispose of.

The cost of "minimalizing brine" using state-of-the-art technology depends on how much equipment the district board agrees to purchase, said board member Laurene Weste.

"We can also go all the way down (reducing brine) to a powder," Weste said Wednesday. "We have to see what is the most cost-effective way of doing it."

Source: SignalSCV

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Taxonomy

• Treatment
• Sludge Separation
• Water Governance