The Coliban Region Water Authority’s Bendigo Water Treatment Plant (WTP) in Victoria, Australia, recently came online. It produces high quality drinking water for the Town of Bendigo’s 80,000 residents using microfiltration technology.
The Bendigo WTP is one of three plants that comprise Coliban Water’s AQUA Project, a 25-year build-own-operate-transfer project for the area’s water treatment plan.
At the heart of the plant is a 33-million-gallon-per-day Memcor® continuous microfiltration-submerged (CMF-S) system, supplied by USFilter’s Memcor Products. The CMF-S system makes the Bendigo WTP the largest microfiltration plant in the world for potable water treatment.
Vivendi Water Australia, USFilter’s sister company, delivered the design and build stage of the project and now has operational responsibility for the 25-year term of the contract.
In May 1998, Coliban Water tested USFilter’s Memcor® CMF-S system on site for eight months during the bidding process. Six months after the test concluded, Coliban Water commissioned a process verification plant (PVP) on site to simulate the entire process train of the future WTP. Trial results showed that the system could meet the specified performance targets, both in terms of water quality and operation.
According to Geoff Michell, the chief executive of Coliban Water, USFilter’s Memcor® CMF-S system combined with ozone and BAC has met all performance standards set by Coliban Water, including water quality targets for removing taste, odor, pathogens, disinfection by-products and other chemical contaminants as well as for reducing particle counts. Moreover, the system is flexible enough to meet future regulatory requirements.
"We constantly monitor water quality within the plant to ensure parameters are maintained," says Michell.
Vivendi Water Australia, which is responsible for extensively monitoring water leaving the plant, anticipates the Bendigo WTP will be ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001 certified by June 2003.
USFilter’s Memcor Products provides flexible, state-of-the-art integrated microfiltration and RO membrane solutions for treating ground water, surface water, seawater, industrial process water, and water reuse.
Source: USFilter
