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Ocotillo Brine Reduction Facility (OBRF)

  • Client:

    Confidential

  • Delivery Method:

    Progressive Design-Build

  • Year Completed:

    2014

  • Specialties:

    Sustainability, Water & Wastewater

Features & Highlights

  • Team’s approach to permitting enabled an accelerated schedule through phased construction packages
  • Facility reliably achieves 90% recovery from the RO systems and 97% for the whole system using a High pH Reverse Osmosis (HpRO) process
  • Value engineering provided the reuse of over $20M of equipment.
  • Features thermal brine concentration units and other advanced treatment technologies
Project Overview

The OBRF is a 1.5 MGD industrial wastewater treatment facility that processes manufacturing reject process water. When the client was faced with water challenges that threatened to impact their expansion plans, the project team established planning projections and generated a preliminary design to meet short-term needs and provide flexibility to accommodate changing flows and future loads.

The team was able to fast-track the detailed design, construction, commissioning, and short-term operation of the facility to meet the client’s needs. The facility maximized the water recovery, reduced the overall brine flow to the existing evaporation ponds, and reduced the volume of potable water use at the facility, by providing high quality recycled water for use in cooling. Due to the wide fluctuation in incoming brine quality, the lime softening process had to be designed and operated to respond to these changes rapidly and produce RO feed water with sufficient and consistent water quality. RO reject was sent to a Brine Concentrator for further volume reduction and recovery of distillate.

After a successful startup, the team identified operational modifications which supported the treatment of cooling tower blowdown and provided significant operational flexibility for the client.

The facility maximized the water recovery, reduced the overall brine flow to the existing evaporation ponds, and reduced the volume of potable water use at the facility, by providing high quality recycled water for use in cooling.

Contacts

Awards & Accolades

2015 Alliant Build America Award, Environmental Enhancement category, Associated General Contractors of America

2015 AZ Real Estate Development (RED) Award, Industrial category, AZRE Magazine