FR reviews water options

FORT RECOVERY — The village has a choice to make.

Fort Recovery Village Council learned about its options for water treatment during a work session Monday.

Marvin Gnagy, owner of PMG Consulting, and Rob Shoaf, owner of Shoaf Consulting, shared information about two possible water softening alternatives for the village moving forward.

Village administrator Randy Diller advised the village in January about a proposal from Gnagy to do an in-depth study on the village’s water plant. At that time, Diller suggested looking into options to move away from treating water with lime and caustic soda because chemical costs had skyrocketed.

Gnagy explained treatment plants across the board are experiencing price increases for chemicals annually, with costs raising by as much as 30% overall in the last three years. Sludge disposal management, which is typically needed regularly with the village’s wastewater lagoons, is also costly, he added.

Since 2021, chemical costs have increased by more than $76,000, Gnagy explained. (Electricity costs have also raised by nearly $7,000.) The total price in 2023 for water treatment is projected to cost about $266,000.

Utilities superintendent Ryan Thien had expressed interest in reducing operational costs, water hardness and plant operating time, Gnagy continued. (Thien asked to reduce water hardness to 150 milligrams per liter, which is about 50 milligrams per liter less than the current rate. He also requested an option to reduce plant operating time, which right now is about 11 hours per day.)

Gnagy and Shoaf suggested flipping to either ion exchange softening or reverse osmosis membrane softening processes. Both options are common treatments for smaller water systems. 

According to a presentation shared by Gnagy and Shoaf, ion exchange works by removing nearly all hardness from the water with ion exchange resin regenerated with brine (a salt solution). The process would require a bypass stream to create the desired hardness (150 milligrams per liter).

“Some of you may have a home water softener, that’s the same as this,” said Shoaf. “Exactly the same. One of the disadvantages, it does add a bunch of sodium to your water.”

With ion exchange softening, the village would shift from using lime and caustic soda to salt. Gnagy and Shoaf’s projections estimate the village would save more than $153,000 annually with the process, which is anticipated to cost nearly $4 million in construction fees.

Reverse osmosis membrane softening is accomplished by pumping water under pressure through reverse osmosis membrane elements, or tube-shaped tools with approximately 15 layers that remove nearly all hardness and other ions. (It would also need a bypass stream to adjust water quality to about 145 milligrams per liter.)

Shoaf has designed 25 out of 30 plants using the reverse osmosis membrane treatment in Ohio. He compared the layers, which act as barriers at each stage, to a roll of paper towels.

“This really doesn’t take much chemical, it takes some antiscalant, but not the chemicals that you would get with the current process,” Shoaf said.

Reverse osmosis membrane softening would significantly decrease the village’s chemical costs — Gnagy and Shoaf estimated a total cost of $12,601 annually. Overall, that’s about a $210,000 cost savings from the village’s current yearly expenditures. Initial construction costs are estimated at about $4.35 million. (The village would need about 56 reverse osmosis membranes, which come to about $550 apiece. They also need to be replaced every five years.)

“Between the two, it’s more expensive (upfront), but it does get you a significantly lower operating cost,” said Gnagy.

Factoring in anticipated costs, said Gnagy, the village is estimated to save $25,000 per year with the reverse osmosis membrane treatment. He noted it’s favored by Thien and Diller. Although the village would need to take a loan to pay for the construction, he said, it would not need to adjust residents’ water rates to make the improvements.

“So the project basically pays for itself, on the reduction and overall operating costs per year,” said Gnagy.

Regardless of its decision, the village will need new pressure filters, according to the study. Both treatment plans also include adding a new treatment building next to southwestern portion of the current water plant building, a process that would likely take about two years to design and construct.

Built in 1982, the village’s current water plant has a capacity of 500,000 gallons a day. It pumps between 210,000 and 220,000 gallons per day now. 

The village has two wells — Gnagy and Shoaf both recommended adding a third well in the event one breaks down suddenly or needs extended maintenance — which feed into an aerator and get treated with lime caustic soda in a clarifier. The resulting sludge goes into the wastewater lagoons, and the water goes through the rest of the cleaning process, which include chemical treatments and traveling through a reaction basin, a stabilization basin, filters and clear wells.

During village council’s regular meeting following the work session, Diller noted he’ll look into potential funding sources such as grants.

“I mean, the bottom line is, if we can do this and not raise our water rates, we’d be pretty foolish not to,” he said.

“It would be pretty impressive, I think,” added Mayor Dave Kaup.