Aquapoint, a New Bedford, Mass., environmental company specializing in distributed wastewater treatment, was selected to provide the treatment system for NASA’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified Infinity Science Center in southern Mississippi.
LEED is the U.S. Building Council’s standard for developing high-performance sustainable buildings efficient in their usage of energy, water and other resources.
“This is a new industry,” Aquapoint’s CEO, Craig Lindell, said. “Wastewater management is no longer simply about the disposal of pollution to preserve public health. Wastewater is now a resource and its infrastructure will now be designed to achieve integrated water resource and watershed management. Wastewater will be treated to standards that enable us to recycle and reuse it to support our communities and the natural systems on which they depend and then to the extent possible, return it to the source from which it came.”
Illustrating how water and energy are interrelated, Lindell described a 100-home community in El Paso, Texas. The development will receive its electricity exclusively from solar and hydrogen fuel cell technologies. The wastewater will be treated to Texas reuse standards. Twenty-seven percent will be recycled for toilet flushing and 70% will be reused for irrigation.
The German energy company Green Flash Energy chose Aquapoint’s Bioclere because it operates reliably on very little electricity. Green Flash Energy estimates the average home will spend about $40 dollars per year for its share of the electrical costs while it will save almost twice that amount in the reduction of its water bill.
Source: Aquapoint
