POWER November 2013 - 53

Water ManageMent
■ In what concentration the contaminants
are present in each stream.
Portable flow monitors and sample collection
devices can be employed to monitor inlet
and outlet flows and collect water samples
from locations that are not instrumented to
capture this data currently (Figure 1).
Tracking plant water and wastewater
flows, and developing a mass balance, can be
as simple as developing an Excel spreadsheet
to log and analyze the data (see the web version
of this article for a downloadable sample
file), although a number of engineering and
consulting firms have developed specialized
tools to aid in this process.
The flow rates and the water quality constituents
for individual plant water and wastewater
streams-such as cooling tower makeup,
boiler and cooling tower blowdown, equipment
drains and washdown, pretreatment
system wastewaters, captured storm waters,
strainer and filter backwash waters, dewatering
equipment filtrate, and many other plant
sources and users-are assessed and tabulated
to enable tracking throughout the plant.
Once the plant water balance is developed
and the mass balance of contaminants
is tracked throughout the plant, staff can use
this tool in conjunction with the water balance
to assess how operational changes or
stream redirection might allow the plant to
reuse some internal wastewater streams and
reduce its water footprint, or reduce the level
of contaminants that are discharged or that
need to be removed.
Obvious examples of internal recycle/reuse
opportunities include recycling reverse
osmosis reject as cooling tower makeup,
collecting and reprocessing boiler or heat recovery
steam generator blowdown water, and
recycling cooling tower blowdown as flue
gas desulfurization makeup water. However,
a close review of the plant water and mass
balances can reveal quite a few opportunities
for water reuse or water conservation. Many
of these internal recycle/reuse opportunities
can be inexpensive and relatively simple to
implement, involving only piping and valving
modifications, though some may involve
the addition of treatment equipment such
as clarification or filtration to reprocess the
wastewater streams to make them suitable for
reuse. Determining the water quality of the
wastewater stream contaminants, therefore,
is a crucial early step in evaluating wastewaters
for reuse opportunities and performing a
cost-benefit analysis.
Development of water and mass balances
will also prepare a plant to intelligently evaluate
the impact of and reaction to potential
modifications to the plant water balance that
may occur due to regulations changes. The
November 2013 | POWER
new proposed U.S. regulations may affect a
plant's cooling water systems, material-handling
and conveyance systems, and wastewater
discharges. Potential changes such as the
addition of wastewater treatment systems or
the rerouting of wastewater streams can be
simulated to assess their effects on overall
plant operations.
Impoundments and Storm Water
Operators and owners tend to focus primarily
on the quality of water coming into the plant
and the wastewater quality going out of the
plant, as required to meet their plant discharge
permits. In contrast, knowing exactly what is
going on within the power plant boundaries
in impoundments and process sumps is not
always as clear, especially in older facilities,
where upgrades and plant modifications have
considerably altered the plant water picture
over the years.
Also, in many coal-fired power plants,
coal combustion waste ponds and impoundments
are utilized for equalization and treatment
of numerous plant wastewater streams,
complicating the plant's ability to easily assess
the potential for reuse of each individual
stream. However, with some of the proposed
U.S. regulation changes, coal-fired power
plants may be required to do just that. Segregation
and separation of plant wastewaters
can minimize the volumetric flow rate that
requires additional treatment to meet the proposed
regulations.
For instance, at one facility where HDR
has been assisting with water and mass balance
activities in preparation for expected
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System permit changes, the engineering team
was able to reconfigure portions of the wastewater
collection system. It segregated storm
waters into contact and noncontact storm
waters and separated mixed process water
streams, allowing the plant to reuse a fair portion
of its previously discharged wastewater.
As a result, the facility significantly reduced
the potential treatment costs associated with
meeting new permit requirements and realized
an overall cost savings.
Get Prepared
Especially in light of the upcoming regulation
changes and the expectation that additional
levels of wastewater treatment will be
necessary to meet some of the new discharge
limits, any plant likely to be affected should
explore the potential for internal recycling
or reuse of plant wastewaters and minimizing
water waste in order to keep wastewater
treatment costs as low as possible.
Starting now, evaluating the current plant
water and wastewater conditions, conducting
sampling and flow measurement programs,
and assessing current wastewater treatment
systems are key to development of a baseline
and plan of attack for dealing with the
impending regulation changes. Knowing
exactly where your plant's starting point is
and developing a solid data history is crucial
to determining what you may need to do to
meet changes in regulatory requirements. ■
-Colleen M. Layman, PE (colleen
.layman@hdrinc.com) is a technical practice
director with HDR Engineering Inc.
Binz Bite
In his 9/21 blog post " The Undoing of Ron Binz, "
Contributing Editor Kennedy Maize shared some of
the back story on the peculiarly public and contentious
nomination and vetting of Ron Binz for chairman
of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Ken,
who has been covering FERC nominations since 1977,
predicted that the pro-Binz PR campaign would come
back to bite his backers. (As it did.)
" The failure of the Binz nomination suggests that
whoever thought it was a good idea to mount a
political campaign to get him confirmed should be
kept away from any future FERC nominations. "
Get Ken's blog posts while they're fresh! You'll find
them on our homepage, powermag.com, under the
POWERBlog heading.
www.powermag.com
53
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POWER November 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER November 2013

Contents
POWER November 2013 - Cover1
POWER November 2013 - Cover2
POWER November 2013 - Contents
POWER November 2013 - 2
POWER November 2013 - 3
POWER November 2013 - 4
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POWER November 2013 - Cover3
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