The village of Cloudcroft resides in south-central New Mexico at an elevation of 8,500 ft with a population of 1,000 people. Like other communities in New Mexico, Cloudcroft is faced with sustainable water supply issues. The village economy relies heavily on tourism with a ski hill, golf course and multiple summer events. Currently, the village must truck water from out of town to satisfy their water requirements during peak demand periods.
After reviewing the long-term needs of the village, it was determined that an integrated water reuse system would best address Cloudcroft’s immediate and long-term needs. The recommended water reuse system consisted of membrane bioreactor (MBR) and reverse osmosis (RO) systems for wastewater treatment and an ultrafiltration (UF) membrane system for water treatment—all from ITT. The system is referred to as an integrated membrane system (IMS).
The proposed wastewater system uses the Sanitaire brand Dual Stage MBR to replace the current Cloudcroft wastewater treatment system. The selection of the Dual Stage MBR for wastewater treatment was based on the intent of reusing the treated wastewater to supplement the irrigation water demand and the potable water demand of the community. The MBR provides a very high degree of treatment, combining activated sludge for organic and nutrient removal with membrane filtration for liquid solids separation.
In addition to the MBR, an Aquious brand RO system was designed to follow the MBR process as an additional wastewater treatment step. The Aquious RO system was selected to provide further treatment to the MBR effluent prior to disinfection and discharge to the Cloudcroft raw water storage reservoir. The raw water storage reservoir collects and retains Cloudcroft’s water source, which includes ground and spring water from local wells. The highly treated wastewater discharge will be used to supplement the current raw water supply to meet the full potable water demand of the community. In addition to the ITT MBR and RO system, the IMS utilizes an ultrafiltration membrane system supplied by Aquious to convert raw water to drinking water. The UF water treatment membrane system receives water from the raw water storage reservoir, providing the necessary filtering to produce drinking water.
The Cloudcroft project involved multiple ITT brands with Sanitaire providing the MBR system, Aquious providing the RO and UF membrane systems and Royce Technologies providing the necessary instrumentation. “I think they felt comfortable with us because we could provide all of the parts,” said John Koch of ITT’s Sanitaire brand. The proposed system treats approximately 100,000 gpd and has been sized to easily expand to 200,000 gpd in the future.
Source: ITT
