AWWA ACE59959

In order to meet increasingly stringent regulatory requirements and public expectations, an intensive analysis and pilot testing program was conducted by the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada over a number of years to define the treatability and water treatment processes most appropriate for its raw water supply. The selected treatment process included ultraviolet light (UV) for primary disinfection of the filtered water. The City recognized, however, that prior to construction of a water treatment plant (WTP) there would be significant public health benefits from early installation of UV for disinfection of the Deacon Reservoir water. In light of this, the City began investigating the use of UV disinfection systems on unfiltered supplies. With funding support from the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AWWARF), the City hosted a study in 2000 to assess the viability of using UV disinfection on its unfiltered water supply. The experimental design was developed so that the following three areas of investigation could be conducted simultaneously: UV pilot testing program conducted continuously over 14 months to assist in determining requirements such as lamp fouling rates and cleaning requirements; UV inactivation studies conducted periodically to verify collimated beam tests of disinfection efficiency, for variable water quality; and, bench-scale and laboratory studies of disinfection byproducts to determine possible control strategies for disinfection byproducts (DBPs) when converting to UV for primary disinfection. One of the goals of the research program was to determine whether UV disinfection was a viable primary disinfection technology that could be used on an interim basis before the WTP was operational. Includes tables, figures.