National primary drinking water regulation for arsenic: A retrospective assessment of costs

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Morgan ◽  
Nathalie B. Simon
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Design Flow ◽  
Cost Data ◽  
Cost Information ◽  
Capital Costs ◽  
Retrospective Assessment ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Treatment Technologies ◽  
Data Yield

Abstract:This paper compares EPA’s ex ante cost analysis of the 2001 maximum contaminant limit (MCL) for Arsenic in Drinking Water to an ex post assessment of the costs. Because comprehensive cost information for installed treatment technologies or other mitigation strategies pursued by water systems to meet the new standard is not available, this case study relies upon ex post cost data from EPA Demonstration Projects, capturing a total of 50 systems across the US. Information shared by several states and independent associations on the types (but not costs) of treatment technologies used by systems is also summarized. Comparisons of predicted costs to realized costs using our limited data yield mixed results. Plotting the capital cost data from the Demonstration Projects against the cost curves for the compliance technologies recommended for smaller systems, we find that the EPA methodology overestimated capital costs in most cases, especially as the size of the system increases (as measured by the design flow rate).

scholarly journals Methods, Protocols, Guidance and Standards for Performance Evaluation for Point-of-Use Water Treatment Technologies: History, Current Status, Future Needs and Directions

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1094
Author(s):  
Emily S. Bailey ◽  
Nikki Beetsch ◽  
Douglas A. Wait ◽  
Hemali H. Oza ◽  
Nirmala Ronnie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water Treatment ◽  
Enteric Bacteria ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Household Water Treatment ◽  
Produce Water ◽  
Point Of Use ◽  
Treatment Technologies ◽  
Injury And Repair ◽  
Testing Protocols

It is estimated that 780 million people do not have access to improved drinking water sources and approximately 2 billion people use fecally contaminated drinking water. Effective point-of-use water treatment systems (POU) can provide water with sufficiently reduced concentrations of pathogenic enteric microorganisms to not pose significant health risks to consumers. Household water treatment (HWT) systems utilize various technologies that physically remove and/or inactivate pathogens. A limited number of governmental and other institutional entities have developed testing protocols to evaluate the performance of POU water treatment systems. Such testing protocols are essential to documenting effective performance because inferior and ineffective POU treatment technologies are thought to be in widespread use. This critical review examines specific practices, procedures and specification of widely available POU system evaluation protocols. Testing protocols should provide standardized and detailed instructions yet be sufficiently flexible to deal with different treatment technologies, test microbe priorities and choices, testing facility capabilities and public health needs. Appropriate infectivity or culture assays should be used to quantify test enteric bacteria, viruses and protozoan parasites, or other appropriate surrogates or substitutes for them, although processes based on physical removal can be tested by methods that detect microbes as particles. Recommendations include further research of stock microbe production and handling methods to consistently yield test microbes in a realistic state of aggregation and, in the case of bacteria, appropriately physiologically stressed. Bacterial quantification methods should address the phenomenon of bacterial injury and repair in order to maximally recover those that are culturable and potentially infectious. It is only with harmonized national and international testing protocols and performance targets that independent and unbiased testing can be done to assure consumers that POU treatment technologies are able to produce water of high microbial quality and low health risk.

Comparative Assessment of the Environmental Sustainability of Existing and Emerging Perchlorate Treatment Technologies for Drinking Water

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (9) ◽  
pp. 4644-4652 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jong Kwon Choe ◽  
Michelle H. Mehnert ◽  
Jeremy S. Guest ◽  
Timothy J. Strathmann ◽  
Charles J. Werth
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Comparative Assessment ◽  
Treatment Technologies

Nuclear, Solar and Desalination Working Together Symbiotically

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamad Alwashmi ◽  
Jay F. Kunze
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Capital Costs ◽  
The World ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Fuel Costs ◽  
Emission Of Greenhouse Gases

In many parts of the world, drinking water is not available except through desalination. Most of these areas have an abundance of solar energy, with few cloudy periods. Energy is required for desalination and for producing electricity. Traditionally this energy has been supplied by fossil fuels. However, even in those parts of the world that have abundant fossil fuels, using them for these purposes is being discouraged for two reasons: 1) the emission of greenhouse gases from combustion of fossil fuels, and 2) the higher value of fossil fuels when used for transportation. Nuclear power and solar power are both proposed as replacements for fossil fuels in these locations. Both of these energy systems have high capital costs, and negligible fuel costs (zero for solar) Instead of these two primary forms of energy competing, this paper shows how they can compliment each other, especially where a significant part of the electricity demand is used for desalination.

scholarly journals Recent Advances in Water and Wastewater Treatment with Emphasis in Membrane Treatment Operations

Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasios Zouboulis ◽  
Ioannis Katsoyiannis
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water Reuse ◽  
Water And Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Fouling Control ◽  
Treatment Processes ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Treatment Technologies ◽  
Water And Wastewater ◽  
Membrane Treatment

The present Special Issue brought together recent research findings from renowned scientists in this field and assembled contributions on advanced technologies that have been applied to the treatment of wastewater and drinking water, with an emphasis on novel membrane treatment technologies. The 12 research contributions highlight various processes and technologies that can achieve the effective treatment and purification of wastewater and drinking water, aiming (occasionally) for water reuse. The published papers can be classified into three major categories. (a) First, there are those that investigate the application of membrane treatment processes, either directly or in hybrid processes. The role of organic matter presence and fouling control is the main aim of the research in some of these studies. (b) Second, there are studies that investigate the application of adsorptive processes for the removal of contaminants from waters, such as arsenic, antimony, or chromate, with the aim of the efficient removal of the toxic contaminants from water or wastewater. (c) Lastly, there are studies that include novel aspects of oxidative treatment such as bubbleless ozonation.

Informed water infrastructure design: improving coupled dam sizing and operation by streamflow forecasts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Castelletti ◽  
Federica Bertoni ◽  
Matteo Giuliani ◽  
Patrick Reed
Keyword(s):  
Large Body ◽  
Water Reservoir ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Forecast Bias ◽  
Capital Costs ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Infrastructure Design ◽  
Streamflow Forecasts ◽  
Hydropower Production

<p>There is a large body of recent research that is capitalizing on the improved skill of state-of-the-art hydroclimatic services for investigating their value in informing water reservoir operations. Yet, the potential value of these services in informing infrastructure design is still unexplored. In this work, we investigate the added value of hydroclimatic services in the planning of water reservoirs, composed of the joint design of the infrastructure’s size and its operations informed by streamflow forecasts. We demonstrate the potential of our approach through an ex-post design analysis of the Kariba dam in the Zambezi river basin, which is the largest man-made reservoir in Africa. The reservoir is operated for hydropower production and irrigation supply. Specifically, we search for flexible operating policies informed by streamflow forecasts that allow the design of smaller and less costly reservoirs with respect to solutions that do not rely on forecast information. This requires selecting the most informative forecast lead times to use in the dam design phase, which depends on both infrastructural reservoir characteristics and tradeoffs across performance objectives. After estimating the value of perfect forecasts, we analyze its sensitivity with respect to using imperfect synthetic forecasts characterized by different biases. The results show that informing the infrastructure design with perfect streamflow forecasts allows reducing capital costs by 20% with respect to a baseline solution not informed by any forecast, while maintaining the same performance in terms of hydropower production and water supply. Forecast overestimation results in the most critical synthetic forecast bias, reducing their value by 8%. Moreover, our analysis show that forecast value is highly sensitive to reservoir size and operational tradeoffs, ultimately representing a valuable tool for supporting the ongoing planning of 3,700 major dams worldwide.</p>

scholarly journals A retrospective assessment of the costs of EPA’s 1998 Locomotive Emission Standards

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kopits
Keyword(s):  
Cost Analysis ◽  
Total Cost ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Retrospective Assessment ◽  
Emission Standards ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Data Limitations ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Benefit Cost ◽  
Benefits And Costs

Abstract:While the need to update EPA benefit-cost analysis to reflect the most recent science is broadly acknowledged, little work has been done examining how well ex ante BCAs estimate the actual benefits and costs of regulations. This paper adds to the existing literature on ex post cost analyses by examining EPA’s analysis of the 1998 Locomotive Emission Standards. Due to data limitations and minimal ability to construct a reasonable counterfactual for each component of the cost analysis, the assessment relies mainly on industry expert opinion, augmented with ex post information from publicly available data sources when possible. The paper finds that the total cost of bringing line-haul locomotives into compliance with the 1998 Locomotive Emission Standards rule remains uncertain. Even though the initial per-unit locomotive compliance costs were higher than predicted by EPA, total costs also depend on the number of locomotives affected by the regulation. Over 2000–2009, the number of newly built line-haul locomotives was higher but the number of remanufactured line-haul locomotives was lower than EPA’s estimate.

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