Delivering innovative potable reuse to strengthen water security and environmental stewardship

The coastal region of Virginia is home to the first successful English settlement, miles of oceanfront white sand Atlantic beaches and 1.7 million people.

It’s also one of the U.S.’s regions most at-risk of devastating climate variability effects such as storm surge flooding and sea level rise.

In fact, according to the Old Dominion University Center for Sea Level Rise, the Hampton Roads area is the second-most vulnerable area in the country to rising seas behind New Orleans – and of the more than 400,000 homes in Virginia at risk for surge damage, Georgetown Climate Center identifies most of them residing in the Hampton Roads region.

The Potomac Aquifer – the region’s primary source of groundwater – is a limited natural resource, meaning it lacks the sufficient ability to recharge naturally. As water is used, the aquifer’s pressure decreases and this reduced pressure has led to land subsidence, or sinking of land, further compounding the region’s susceptibility to rising seas and risk of saltwater contamination. Because Virginians have been using more water than can be naturally replaced in the aquifer throughout the last century (it would take tens of thousands of years for the aquifer to return to its natural state if eastern Virginia were to stop using it today), action needed to be taken to protect the source.

Every day, residents and businesses in the region send around 150-million-gallons of wastewater to Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD), a regional wastewater treatment agency providing service to 18 counties and cities in Southeastern Virginia. This wastewater is then treated to levels clean enough to safely return to area waterways, such as the Chesapeake Bay. Knowing that their water was too valuable to waste, HRSD began exploring how they could do more for their community and the greater environment; questioning if there was a better way to reuse treated water than just sending it back toward rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. That’s how the SWIFT program came to be.

In 2014, HRSD turned to Jacobs to begin evaluating concepts for a groundbreaking potable reuse project. Born out of an existing general engineering services contract, our involvement on SWIFT turned into years of follow-on work, helping to establish a six-phase program aiming to protect the region’s environment, enhance the sustainability of the region’s long-term groundwater supply and help address environmental pressures such as Chesapeake Bay restoration, sea level rise and saltwater intrusion.

400Khomes in Virginia gaining better protection from rising sea levels

90%expected reduction of discharge from SWIFT facilities

60Mgallons of water/day recharging the Potomac Aquifer by 2030

The Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow is vital to proactively addressing our water, environmental and economic needs not only for today, but for generations to come. We know that Virginians want forward-looking solutions to tackle today’s problems. Our water is too valuable to waste – and SWIFT allows us to recapture this important resource and use it to address our depleting groundwater supply while addressing multiple other water related environmental challenges.

Ted Henifin

Former Hampton Roads Sanitation District General Manager