A Successful Modification of Conventional SBR to MBR at Indian Casino and Facility: Case study of Chumash Casino and Resort Water Reclamation Facility (WRF)

A conventional wastewater treatment process such as sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was successfully upgraded to a membrane bioreactor (MBR) at an Indian casino resort and hotel, Santa Ynez, California. The technical difficulties from existing process at the site including bar screen, SBR, sand filtration were relieved of by new biological membrane technology. As the hotel and its vicinity expanded, the existing water treatment facility was not able to treat increased flow, which was major driving force for this membrane upgraded project. In addition, as the area was in high drought zone, without meeting the purpose of water reuse, new expansion was not approved. New process was designed and built in new 2-mm screening, pre-anoxic, oxic, post-anoxic, and MBR along with UV disinfection. New construction was made minimizing a major revision on the existing structure and its civil work. The existing SBR chambers turned to divided tanks for pre-anoxic, oxic, and post-anoxic processes, while newly built pre-fabricated MBR system was added, only using 40 ft standard containers (one container for MBR tank and the other for equipment room). Such new packaged system with minor change on the existing has brought the customer a number of benefits utilizing reclaimed water highly meeting the CA Title 22 requirements. The reclaimed water goes to toilet water, cooling tower, and support of side stream. This study details how this modification was technically done and will help with other similar cases in terms of treatment process and membrane application.