KCBA - Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz - News Weather-Carmel Wastewater Plant on Cutting Edge of Water Treatment
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CARMEL, Calif. - The Carmel Area Wastewater District says a new project designed to reclaim water for Monterey Peninsula golf courses is running without a hitch. For the past four months, the treatment plant has been utilizing a new system that takes into account the unique demands of the famed fairways and greens of Pebble Beach.
Since 1994, treated water has been used at the seven peninsula golf courses. It was discovered the water used contained levels of sodium too high for healthy turf growth. The Pebble Beach Company spent $22 million dollars in asking the CAWD and the Pebble Beach Community Services District to find an advanced method to reclaim water that would meet the requirements for the courses' needs.
What was created was a new system that includes micro-filtration and reverse osmosis techniques. CAWD plant manager Mark Scheiter says the project was a daunting task; the new system had to manage the Carmel area's varying flow of wastewater and put out a specific water product.
For starters, the new process created water that proved to be too clean and unfit for use in pipes. TScheiter says the treated water would be nearly devoid of mineral material, and would act to absorb minerals wherever it flowed.
"Water becomes aggressive when youve removed 98% of the minerals," Scheiter says. "What we have to do is add back minerals that satisfies it's aggressiveness but doesn't prove toxic to the golf courses."
Scheiter adds that unlike areas with populations of more than six million people, the Carmel area also didn't create a steady wastewater flow necessary for existing treatment methods. Therefore, the new system needed a way to manage the increased flow of wastewater during the morning when residents are bathing and eating breakfast and the decreased flow at nighttime.
"Very, very few installations i'm aware of have to do something like that," Scheiter said.
The plant cranks out 1.2 million gallons of treated water per day. While most is destined for Pebble Beach golf courses, some is used to help stabilize water demands in the nearby Carmel Lagoon. Scheiter says it's been a boon for Carmel River steelhead and that federal agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration and the U.S. Department of Fish and Game have been clamoring for the new treatment process.
