The city of East Chicago, Ind., has awarded Siemens a multimillion-dollar contract to provide a Memcor pressurized membrane filtration system for a new water treatment plant.
The 16-million-gal-per-day (mgd) system, which will treat water from Lake Michigan, will be the first large-scale pressurized membrane plant in Indiana. It will also be Siemens’ 12th membrane plant on Lake Michigan. American Structurepoint and Black & Veatch will provide design engineering and plant construction services. The system is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2011.
After reviewing all the proposals and some of Siemens’ membrane plants already operating on the lake, American Structurepoint recommended the Memcor membrane system to the city. Says Eric Horvath, north regional services director for American Structurepoint, “We felt that the Siemens offering provided the best value, and we believed they would do a good job given their experience in treating Lake Michigan water.”
The existing water treatment plant in East Chicago was built in 1964 and has reached the end of its design life expectancy. The deterioration of the plant has resulted in concerns about operational reliability. Because of the multimillion-dollar investment needed to rehabilitate and refurbish the existing facility, the city has elected to construct a new treatment plant inland from the current location. Once the new plant is operating, the old plant will be demolished and the land will be incorporated into the Marquette Plan for revitalizing the Lake Michigan waterfront.
The Memcor CP pressurized membrane filtration system will consist of six skids, each with 240 membrane modules. This innovative technology is popular with drinking water plants as it offers a lower lifecycle cost and a smaller footprint than conventional treatment systems. It also provides a greater than 4-log removal of Cryptosporidium, Giardia and bacteria, over 1.5-log virus rejection and a silt density index of less than 2.0, regardless of changing feedwater conditions.
Source: Siemens
