Permit Considerations for Tampa Bay Water Desalination Modification Project

Tampa Bay Water owns a 25 MGD Seawater Desalination Facility on the West Coast of Florida to treat seawater from the Gulf and sale the water to the six governments (3 cities and 3 counties). In the past, performance of the seawater facility has not met the goals set by Tampa Bay Water. In order to improve performance, Tampa Bay Water went through competitive bids for pilot study, design and construction of the facility modifications. Prior to the modifications, the seawater desalination facility consisted of in-line coagulation, dual stage sand filtration, reverse osmosis, pH adjustment and disinfection. The modifications to improve performance of the facility consist of adding a conventional coagulation/flocculation-sedimentation prior to sand filtration and adding a diatomaceous earth filtration treatment downstream the sand filtration. In addition, post treatment pH adjustment process was modified. Prior to the construction of the modifications, six permits had to be issued by State and local agencies such as the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Hillsborough County and Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission. In addition to obtain the six permits, schedule was of importance due to fast track project schedule. This paper will present the different steps, requirements, preliminary studies and laboratory analyses necessary to obtain the various permits for the reverse osmosis facility modifications within a tight schedule. A pilot study was performed during the permit process in order to support the application packages. Concentrate and sludge were generated such as characterization and specific analyses were performed.