Many of Egypt's cities have existing treatment plants under operation that have been constructed before 1970. Almost all of these treatment plants now need rehabilitation and upgrading to extend their services for a longer period. One of these plants is the Beni Suef City Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Beni Suef WWTP was constructed in 1956. It has primary treatment followed by secondary treatment employing intermediate rate trickling filters. The BOD, COD, and SS concentration levels are relatively high. They are approximately 800, 1100, and 600 mg/litre, respectively.
The Beni Suef city required the determination of the level of work needed for the rehabilitation and upgrading of the existing 200 l/s plant and to extend its capacity to 440 l/s at year 2000 A description of the existing units, their deficiencies and operation problems, and the required rehabilitation are presented and discussed in this paper.
Major problems facing the upgrading were the lack of space for expansion and the shortage of funds. It was, therefore, necessary to study several alternative solutions and methods of treatment. The choice of alternatives was from one of the following schemes: a) changing the filter medium, its mode of operation and increasing the number of units, b) changing the trickling filter to high rate and combining it with the activated sludge process, for operation by one of several possible combinations such as: trickling filter-solids contact, roughing filter-activated sludge, and trickling filter-activated sludge process, c) dividing the flow into two parts, the first part to be treated using the existing system and the second part to be treated by activated sludge process, and d) expanding the existing system by increasing the numbers of the different process units.
The selection of the alternative was based on technical, operational and economic evaluations. The different alternatives were compared on the basis of system costs, shock load handling, treatment plant operation and predicted effluent quality.
The flow schemes for the alternatives are presented. The methodology of selecting the best alternative is discussed.
From the study it was concluded that the first alternative is the most reliable from the point of view of costs, handling shock load, and operation.