Hamilton's water treatment plant - A review of recent performance
Annual Conference
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The Hamilton Water Treatment Plant upgrade cost $23 million and was constructed over a 20 month period in 2006 and 2007. The existing plant was a conventional plant with coagulation, sedimentation, and sand filtration followed by disinfection. It had a capacity of 85ML/d.
The main drivers for the upgrade were taste and odour issues related to algae, protozoan compliance criteria associated with the then proposed DWSNZ, and a requirement for increased capacity. The plant draws water from the Waikato River, which has a number of treatment plants (both water and wastewater) upstream of the Hamilton Water Treatment Plant, and has had historic problems with algal blooms related to a number of factors including the river temperature profile, slow moving water, and relatively high nutrients loads in the river.
The upgrade included new higher rate sand filters, new chemical dosing and storage systems, introduction of Granulated Activated Carbon (GAC) filtration and low pressure UV disinfection, and a new plant controls system. The design capacity was 106 ML/d.
There are many water authorities in New Zealand that are moving towards a similar treatment process train and given the length of time the plant has been running it is timely to review the performance of the plant.