Potable reuse and treatment of water via reverse osmosis is gaining popularity especially since intake and discharge permitting and regulation in California are making coastal desalination increasingly more difficult.

From a thermodynamic standpoint, desalination of ocean water is much more energy

credit: ALERT Project Official Site

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intense than RO processing a tertiary treated wastewater stream.

It is vital to develop a more comprehensive understanding of Contaminants of Concern (CEC) found in the concentrate streams when utilizing RO to produce water for direct and indirect potable reuse.

RO concentrate streams generated from potable reuse feed streams are highly concentrated in CEC.

Research has been done on CEC for wastewater effluents and reuse in product water.

However studies related to concentrate streams from RO that treat reuse waters are lacking.

This will further guide this research.

The goal is to find the best way to manage and dispose of concentrate streams containing high levels of emerging contaminants with the least impact to the environment.

This project is part of a larger project and part of the overall project is fund by Reclamation’s Science and Technology program out of the research office.

Project partners include Inland Empire Utilities Association (IEUA), Carollo Engineers, Cal Poly Pomona, Reclamation’s Yuma and Southern California Area Office’s and Denver’s Technical Services Center (TSC).

IEUA and Carollo are providing cash and in-kind services to the project.

Cal Poly Pomona will be providing in-kind services from Principal Investigator.

The primary place of performance will be at IEUA in Southern California and the principal investigator at Cal Poly is Ali Sharbat, and Saied Delagah at Reclamation.

This is a collaborative effort that brings together Cal Poly Pomona, Reclamation, Carollo Engineers, and IEUA.