Top 10: The largest drinking water treatment plants in the world

An adequate water supply is essential for both human life, economic and enterprise development.

However, adequate water supply has become a more  fundamental right due to the growing global water crisis, where water resources are scarce, quality problems prevail and infrastructure in developing countries is old or non-existent.

The consequences of inadequate water infrastructure and lack of access to quality freshwater have far-reaching consequences that affect almost every person, economy and business on the planet.

As a result, modern and robust water infrastructure is critical to the country’s economic development because it not only secures water supply but also avoids the spread of illness and diseases, promotes economic growth, and ensures a higher living standard

In this article we will talk about the 10 Largest Drinking-Water Treatment Plants in the World 

The James W. Jardine Water Purification Plant

It is the world’s largest water treatment plant it serves over 2.8 million people in north Chicago and certain adjacent suburban communities.

It  is designed and built by Chicago’s Bureau of Engineering This Bureau is specialized in  designing the water and sewer main systems.

This includes:

  • determining the size of the water and sewer mains required to properly serve the community as well as future growth.
  • locating the valves required to control the flow of potable water.
  • and locating underground sewer structures to remove storm and waste water for treatment.

The Bureau of Engineering provides exceptional services for buildings both public and private that are connected to public water and sewer mains.

These are the water and sewer lines that connect any facility to the street mains, usually through the building’s façade.

The project took 13 years and cost $105 million and It serves around 64% of the city’s population.

The plant went into operation in 1964. It is located on a 61-acre man-made peninsula that stretches into Lake Michigan.

The first 1,100-foot-long, 180-foot-wide plant reached 36 feet below lake level and 25 feet above.

The plant processes over 1 billion gallons per day of potable water, more than any other purification system on the world.

Treatment Process

Water enters the plant from two cribs located 2 miles off Lake Michigan and delivered down tunnels nearly 200 feet into the lake, with diameters ranging from 10 to 20 feet.

Water flows from the cribs through massive intake shafts before passing through  screens that filter out fish, weeds, and other big particles in the water.

The water is then lifted 25 feet by enormous “Low Lift” pumps then gravity takes over the rest of the process After that stage, chemical treatment begins with the use of chlorine to kill bacteria and activated carbon to remove unwanted tastes and odors.

Fluoride is then added for healthy teeth. . Finally, after about an hour of processing, aluminum sulphate, or alum, is added to increase the viscosity of microscopic solids, which subsequently stick to each other, forming floc.

Large paddles, known as flocculators, help in the mixing of alum and water. At the end , polyphosphate is added to coat the interior of Chicago’s pipes to prevent lead from entering the water system.

The water is then pumped into settling tanks where the floc settles to the bottom. During the sedimentation phase, approximately 90% of the particle matter contained in the water is removed.

Finally, the water is filtered in one of 96 pool-sized tanks that are filled with a layer of coarse gravel behind a top layer of fine sand, through this process the plant is effectively filtering out most of the lint residue and debris then  Water is delivered to the pumping stations located throughout the City of Chicago by large underground tunnel systems.

Guandu Water Treatment Plant

Rio de Janeiro  is considered to be one of the world’s largest water treatment plants.

The plant processes over 981 million gallons per day which considered a huge number compared to other plants around the world ,it supplies 90% of Rio’s water supply and serves 9 million people.

The plant’s raw water supply comes from the nearby Paraiba do Sul river basin north of the city.

The water is pumped 50 metres uphill and utilised to generate hydroelectric power as it falls downward; It then flows into the artificial river Guandu and then into the treatment plant.

It is a conventional plant that uses chemical coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, disinfection, and pH correction. . The plant was constructed in 1955, Empresa Brasileira de Guas (EBA) completed the first phase of construction, and Yamagata Engenharia completed the second.

There are nine settling basins. Companhia Estadual de Guas e Pedras is the owner and operator.

Water Treatment Plant General San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The plant processes over 894 million gallons per day. and is one of the largest plants in the region, not only in terms of size but also in terms of production capacity.

The San Martn plant supplies 32% of the province and city of Buenos Aires’ total population of 18 million residents  in the neighborhoods of San Isidro, Vicente López and San Martín, Tres de Febrero, Morón, Ituzaingó, Hurlingham, part of La Matanza and the entire city of Buenos Aires.

The plant was designed by the Technical Office of the National Commission for Sanitation Works.

It  was partially inaugurated in 1913 and fully operational in 1928.it owned by Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos S.A (AySA)

Prospect Water Filtration Plant

It is Sydney’s largest water filtration plant, supplying safe drinking water to 85% of the city’s population, or approximately 4 million people as the plant processes over 792 million gallons per day.

A 23-year cooperation between SUEZ and Sydney’s water provided drinking water to 85% of Sydney’s population.

In 1993 SUEZ was given the contract to design, develop, manage, and maintain the plant for 25 years as part of the Prospect Water Partnership.Since its inception on September 11, 1996, the Prospect Water Filtration Plant has continually provided safe and dependable drinking water that meets Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.

The construction cost was $240 million.

Operational reliability for everyday practice

An advanced and highly automated process management system has been implemented to manage the treatment process and control the quality of the treated water.

Ongoing technical training programs for employees are conducted along with periodic skill reviews to ensure they are equipped with up-to-date technical knowledge and skills.

Thanks to system improvements and investment in staff development, the quality of the treated water has been consistently delivered within our customer’s contractual requirements since commissioning.

Suez innovated a dedicated design for efficient operation

The hydraulics of the plant were a challenge from day one of the design phase. The location and design of the plant only allowed a head of 5.2 m for gravity flow throughout the plant.

To solve the problem, passive control systems have been integrated into the plant, allowing an accuracy of +/- 2% in the distribution of the flow to each filter.

An innovation in chemical mixing was adopted to optimize performance over the large size of the contact channels.

A new hydraulic flash mix scale was used to ensure minimal chemical consumption and fast, even dispersion for efficient chemical mixing systems.

In Prospect’s water filtration system, the filters are designed to remove solids directly in the filters without the need for a settling phase.

This innovative design allows for 50% less backwash water during the filtration process.

The filter performance of 24 m/h is twice as high as with conventional filters.

Today, due to its innovative design, the plant works efficiently to always provide the residents of Sydney with reliable drinking water.

Through collaboration between SUEZ and Sydney Water, the partnership works together to continually improve the efficiency and effectiveness of plant operation and reliability.

A testament to this is the quality of the plant’s drinking water, strong safety culture and relatively low energy costs.

Guarau Water Treatment Plant, São Paulo

The plant’s original capacity was 250 million gallons per day, but has since been expanded several times to process over 750 million gallons per day.

When there is no drought in the region, the plant supplies the 9 million inhabitants of the metropolitan area of São Paulo.

Serete Engehnaria designed the plant and James M. Montgomery built it.The owner and operator is the Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo SA (Sabesp)and it is a public water and wastewater company, and  the operation was in 1973.

It gets its raw water from the Cantareira system, a complex of six reservoirs on the hills north of the city.

The plant uses alum to coagulate and flocculate the particles, which are then removed by sedimentation and filtration.

Chlorine is added to kill bacteria, then fluoride is added for healthy teeth.

Joseph Jensen Treatment Plant

It is located in Granada Hills, California .

It is the largest processing plant in the metropolitan area and the largest west of the Mississippi River .

when The plant was built by Peter Kiewit Sons’ Co. in 1972.it’s capacity was 450 million gallons per day , and it had 12 settling basins.

The 1995 expansion of the Hyman-JWP West joint venture raised its capacity to 750 million gallons per day.

The renovation increased the capacity for filter wash water reclamation treatment, the number of sedimentation basins, and the number of filters.

An ozone disinfection system was installed in 2005, and fluoride and chlorine containment systems were added to the plant in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

To comply with a state requirement, chlorine disinfection was switched to ozone disinfection, which also decreased tastes and odours in the tap water, which may have been brought on by algae growth in the source water.

The plant is owned and run by Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District.

Bhandup Water Treatment Plant, Mumbai, India

It processes approximately 739 million gallons per day, and covers 365 hectares and borders the Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

There are two lakes in the park, Vihar Lake and Tulsi Lake, which serve as reservoirs for the plant.

The 15 km long, 5 m diameter tunnel was completed in 2016 to carry above-ground pipelines that supply water to the plant from four reservoirs northeast of Mumbai.

Crews are currently working on installing a 12.5MW solar farm in Bhandup, which will provide a third of the energy needed to run the plant, which employs 450 people. It is owned and operated by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

The Sawyer Water Purification Plant

Formerly known as the South Water Purification Plant,it was the city of Chicago’s first water filtering plant,and was the largest filtration plant in the world when it was finished in 1947 until Chicago completed its second filtration plant, the central plant (now the Jardine Water Purification Plant) was completed in 1964.

The plant was under construction for many years, and the Construction was approved in 1930 and the plant went into operation in 1947.

The plant currently processes approximately 720 million gallons per day. The original plant, which had a capacity of 280 million gallons per day, included four settling tanks and 80 filters.

A fifth settling basin and 40 more filters were added in 1964, increasing capacity to 480 million gallons per day, and the Operational improvements over the past 20 years have brought capacity to current levels.

The plant serves approximately 36% of the city’s residents and several of the southwestern suburbs.

The water is taken from a cradle in Lake Michigan, which has an inlet about 20 to 30 feet below the lake surface, and is then sent through a tunnel under the lake floor to the treatment plant, and then it goes through several steps to filter out suspended particles and compound Chemicals, including chlorine, are added to disinfect the water.

This system relies on pumps, not gravity, to move clean water.On September 19, 2016, the City of Chicago renamed the South Water Purification Plant the Sawyer Water Purification Plant in honor of former Mayor Eugene Sawyer, and it was designed by the Chicago Bureau of Engineering.

La Mesa Water Treatment Plant Complex

The plant processes approximately 700 million gallons per day ,and is consists of Three plants

  • The largest water treatment plant in the Philippines, with a design capacity of 396 million litres per day (MLD), is the first conventional plant. designed by Camp, Dresser & McKee (now CDM Smith), with a 396 million gallon capacity per day.
  • The second plant was erected in 1993 and was designed by Degrémont, which is now a subsidiary of Suez. With a daily capacity of 264 million gallons, it is a pulsator-type plant. Water for La Mesa 2 comes from the Angat impounding reservoir and goes through sand filters and clarifiers with pulsators.
  • The third plant which considered the most recent one is the East La Mesa treatment plant, and processes approximately 40 million gallon per day.

The plant has been modernized to increase its capacity to treat raw turbid water and improve its resilience to possible seismic impacts.

Working with operator Maynilad Water Services Inc., Arup provided water feasibility, procurement and construction management consultancy services to ensure  quality  design and execution of the renovation and modernization works.

Thanks to the upgrades, the plant now has improved water treatment capacity, automated processes and earthquake-resistant structures.

The treatment facilities were also fitted with solar panels to maximize treatment efficiency and generate renewable energy to offset the facility’s electricity consumption.

The FE Weymouth Water Treatment Plant in Los Angeles

It was the first drinking water treatment plant built by the Metropolitan Water District in 1940.

Through continued expansion and modernization, The initial capacity of the plant was 100 million gallons per day. In 1949, there was a switch from two tanks and twelve filters to four tanks and twenty-four filters ,currently it can 520 million gallons per day (MGD) of potable water. Hoover & Montgomery Consulting Engineers (a forerunner of MWH) developed the facility, and the Griffith Co. was the major contractor.

It is significantly more stylish than typical treatment plants.

It processes water from the Colorado River as well as water imported from Northern California via the State Water Project. The project received the NECA Award 2013 in the Electrical Excellence category.

References

  1. https://www.enr.com/
  2. https://www.arup.com/
  3. https://www.suez.com/en/india
  4. https://www.suez.com/en
  5. http://www.meridianprecast.com/
  6. https://www.wri.org/
  7. https://www.epa.gov/
  8. https://micromod.com/
  9. https://drinktap.org/
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