Regional Utilities of S. Walton County has selected USFilter to complete a $3 million turnkey wastewater treatment plant upgrade for the rapidly growing Point Washington resort community on the Florida Panhandle, about 50 miles east of Pensacola.

The 2 million gallon per day (mgd) plant, to begin construction this month, will produce effluent suitable for reuse in irrigation on the nearby Camp Creek golf course. It will replace an existing nine-year-old 750,000 gallon per day (gpd) treatment plant.

The new facility will use a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) process supplied by USFilter’s Jet Tech Products with concrete circular tanks from USFilter’s Davco Products. It will produce effluent to achieve less than 5 mg/l BOD, 5 mg/l TSS, 3 mg/l nitrogen, and 1 mg/l phosphorus.

Regional Utilities of Walton County provides water and wastewater services to panhandle communities developing along the Gulf of Mexico. The utility already operates two USFilter plants in the area – a 500,000 gpd SBR facility at Seacrest, two miles west of Point Washington; and a 2 mgd plant at Sandestin, six miles east, that uses a Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR) process.

The three plants are interconnected, enabling Regional Utilities to divert streams from any one plant to the others during maintenance shutdowns, utility power outages, or peak-flow periods, such as occur during tourist seasons. The area is developing rapidly with large second homes around golf courses and beaches.

At Point Washington, USFilter helped Florida Community Services to meet space limitations on the property by using tankage from the existing plant for post-equalization basins, digesters, and chlorine contact chambers.

"The main reason we chose the SBR process was its small footprint," said Dave Marell, Director of Water and Wastewater for Regional Utilities. "Land in this area is at a premium, and you have to get the maximum capacity from the available space. The land around this particular site is part of the Point Washington State Wildlife Management area and so of course is not for sale.

"We also selected the SBR process because it is easy to operate. We've had good experience with the SBR plant at Seacrest, we like dealing with USFilter. They have provided a great deal of support after the sale on our other projects."

The SBR process integrates an advanced wastewater treatment process into a compact package system. It includes a reactor that consists of two concentric, circular concrete tanks. The inner tank serves as an anaerobic digester, and the outer circular space is divided into two sequencing batch reactor tanks and influent and effluent holding tanks.

A single cycle for each reactor consists of five distinct stages: fill react, settle, decant, and idle. The process yields high-quality effluent from a wide range of waste streams and can biologically remove phosphorus.

Other technology supplied by USFilter at the Point Washington plant includes Gravisand™ media filters for tertiary treatment, EMU sludge pumps, a rotating screen in the headworks, and a J-Spin® centrifuge for biosolids dewatering. Bruce Environmental was the rep firm handling the sale.