 |
 |
Tampa Bay Water’s new $110-million desalination plant began producing drinkable water Sunday. When fully operational, the plant will be the biggest of its kind in the nation and will produce 25-million gallons a day of fresh drinking water to be distributed to 2-million customers.
The 19-million gallons of brine the plant produces is mixed with 1-billion gallons of saltwater from the power plant that flows into Tampa Bay. If the brine is too salty for the bay, alarms sound.
|
 |
 |
[Times photo: Skip O-Rourke]
Tampa Bay Water’s Seawater Desalination Plant, foreground, is next to TECO’s Big Bend power plant.
|
 |
TECO’s power plant at Big Bend withdraws and discharges 1.4-billion gallons of water from Tampa Bay each day. The new desalination plant will “catch” 44-million gallons of that water and convert it into 25-million gallons of drinking water. The leftover 19-million gallons of concentrated saltwater will be diluted back into the 1.4-billion gallons of baywater already running through the power plant’s system, and returned to Tampa Bay.
|
|
 |
 |
| The Big Bend plant uses reverse osmosis for desalination. This is the process of forcing salty water through condensed thin membranes, which remove the salt. Tampa Bay Water’s plant uses 10,000 of these membrane filters.
How it works:
A. Saltwater is forced into membrane cylinder ...
B. ... and forced through a thin membrane. The salt is filtered out here.
C. Freshwater exits membrane.
|
|
 Algae and small organic material must be removed from the saltwater before it is sent through expensive reverse osmosis membranes. At the desal plant’s intake, the water is treated chemically to induce particles to cluster together and to control biological growth. The water is then sent through 16 dual-stage sand filters. The sand grains are irregularly shaped for maximum contact. As the saltwater leaves the filters, sulfuric acid is added to lower the ph level. The saltwater is stored in two 500,000-gallon wells.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
The treated salt-free water is sent to Tampa Bay Water’s regional treatment facility near Brandon.
The water is blended with surface and groundwater.
|
 |
[Times art: Don Morris] Source: Tampa Bay Water
|
 |
|
|
|