LAWRENCEVILLE — Gwinnett County's water department has been selected to receive research funding from the WasteReuse Research Foundation.
On Tuesday, county commissioners approved an agreement with the foundation for the research project, which will test the feasibility and economics of using ozone/biological treatment to produce drinking water directly from reclaimed water.
That's compared to a more expensive treatment, reverse-osmosis, that's currently being used in Texas and California.
"This research is being conducted in partnership with the WateReuse Research Foundation, and besides Gwinnett County we have some other team members including CDM Smith and Georgia Tech, and we're using local universities which is exciting for us as well," said Denise Funk, Operations Technical Services Division Director for the department. Funk is also the co-principal investigator for the 22-month project.
Currently, Gwinnett County is the only American utility to use both ozone and biological filtration at a water reclamation facility. When Gwinnett returns highly treated wastewater back to Lake Lanier, it is nearly drinking water quality and in many ways is cleaner than the lake.
"We'll be able to evaluate and optimize our treatment processes to produce cleaner water more efficiently and potentially reduce costs," said Funk.
The research project will be supported with $100,000 from the foundation and more than $900,000 in planned expenditures by the County, which includes the purchase of pilot plant equipment and professional services for engineering and testing. And, drinking water will not be impacted by the research.
