Evoqua Water Technologies announced it has been selected by KW Resort Utilities (KWRU) to expand KWRU’s existing biological wastewater treatment capacity in Key West.
The project will help KWRU meet future capacity and nutrient removal requirements in the region’s fragile marine environment.
The project will include the installation of a DAVCO Field-Erected Biological Treatment plant, expanding capacity by 350,000 gallons per day (GPD). The existing facility currently treats 500,000 GPD.
The three-stage Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR) activated sludge plant includes steel outer walls 90 feet in diameter and 20.5 feet high. Evoqua will supply steel tanks, internal components for the wastewater plant, field erection, field painting and commissioning.
This plant is a continuation of 33-year relationship between KWRU and Evoqua’s DAVCO product support team that began in 1983, when Evoqua supplied a 250,000 GPD extended aeration DAVCO Field Erected Treatment Plant.
In 1997 a second identical plant was erected, doubling the capacity to 500,000 GPD. In 2007 a 56,000 gallon stand-alone clarifier was erected and the two existing plants were converted into a three-stage Biological Nutrient Removal process as effluent requirements became more stringent.
The new 350,000 GPD plant is expected to start up in early 2017 giving the utility a total treatment capacity of 850,000 GPD.
“We’re thinking about our future in this densely populated, fragile marine environment,” said KWRU president Christopher Johnson. “Evoqua has helped make great progress in addressing our community’s needs over the last 33 years, and we expect this project to help us to continue to meet those needs for 33 more.”