Innovative Technology is the First of
Its Kind in North Carolina
Carthage, North Carolina
Hobbs, Upchurch & Associates worked with the Town of Carthage to expand its
water treatment plant utilizing an innovative technology to meet the needs of
the town.
Key Elements
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Pilot study and testing of microfiltration membranes.
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Design of 1 MGD water treatment plant.
Pilot Study and Testing
After extensive
pilot testing, HUA recommended the use of the new Continuous Microfiltration
(CMF) water treatment system for the Carthage Water Treatment Plant. This new
and innovative technology allows areas with good raw water quality to produce
superior quality drinking water with low operation and maintenance costs. The
Memcor CMF design differs from conventional sand/media filters by physically
preventing inorganic and organic contaminants larger than 0.2 microns from
penetrating the membrane barrier. The membrane is a hollow fiber that filters
the water as system pressure drives the water from the outside to the inside of
the membrane. The membranes are housed in a module attached to a skid-mounted
system that allows great flexibility for future upgrades.
The Continuous Microfiltration water treatment system was selected for Carthage
based on the raw water quality and the ability of the design to meet the
filtration requirements of the Surface Water Treatment Rules (SWTR) and
Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rules for the removal of specific
contaminants. Testing proved that the raw water source from Nicks Creek
provided high quality raw water that yielded extraordinary results during the
pilot testing. The raw water source is a run-of-stream intake that pumps six
miles to an off stream reservoir at the treatment facility site. The quality of
raw water produced by Nick's Creek coupled with the benefits of the off-stream
reservoir allowed the CMF design to be most effective in this application.
NCDENR Involvement and the Future of
Membrane Treatment in North Carolina
The Carthage Water
Treatment Plant project was the first municipal facility of its size in North
Carolina to use the CMF process. Therefore, the North Carolina Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR) Public Water Supply staff was
included in each step of the research.
Use of the proposed design has provided the foundation and technical supporting
data for NCDENR to use for future approval of similar systems. Since the
Carthage Water Treatment Plant was the first 1 MGD CMF surface water treatment
facility to be approved, the project has provided a new accepted treatment
technology for water treatment design in North Carolina. The further
development of water quality and operational costs data will be beneficial to
future reviews of design alternatives. The automated operation of the facility
will also provide the framework for NCDENR to investigate the feasibility of
unmanned operation of facilities, as is currently approved in other states.
In addition, on-going analysis of raw water conditions at Carthage will
identify possible pretreatment technologies that may be utilized with
membranes. HUA continues to work extensively with the Town and representatives
of DENR in the investigation of the use of membrane filtration.
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