The Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow (SWIFT) will add advanced treatment processes to several HRSD facilities to produce water that meets drinking water standards. This SWIFT Water will then be treated to match the existing groundwater chemistry and added to the Potomac Aquifer, the primary source of groundwater throughout eastern Virginia. This will achieve several important benefits that will help ensure future generations inherit clean and abundant waterways.
-
SWIFT helps the Chesapeake Bay by significantly reducing the amount of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus that HRSD discharges to local waters; it provides a sustainable source of groundwater, replenishing the depleted natural resource making groundwater abundant for generations to come, and it may reduce the rate at which land is sinking in Hampton Roads, which will enhance the ability of the environment and our communities adapt to rising seas.
-
HRSD’s promise is to treat wastewater and recover natural resources to protect public health and the environment. The residents of the HRSD service area send approximately 150 million gallons of wastewater to HRSD daily. Our communities invest in cleaning this water to exacting standards so that it can be returned safely to our local waterways. With an ever increasing need to provide additional levels of water treatment coupled with a depleted groundwater resource, HRSD sees SWIFT as a responsible use of our communities’ investment, ultimately producing SWIFT Water™ which meets drinking water standards and delivers multiple environmental and economic benefits to the region.
-
SWIFT Water™ is carefully and continuously monitored to ensure it meets human health standards and is compositionally matched to the Potomac aquifer to protect it. SWIFT Water™ undergoes rigorous quality controls to ensure it meets the standards imposed by the Safe Drinking Water Act - the same standards required by all drinking water in the United States. Quarterly Water Quality Target reports for all SWIFT Water produced at the SWIFT Research Center can be found here. SWIFT is regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency and operation of SWIFT is also overseen by a committee including Virginia's Department of Health and Department of Environmental Quality.
Critical control points throughout the Advanced Water Treatment process allow strict monitoring, with the ability to redirect any water that not meeting specifications away from the aquifer recharge wells and back to the treatment plant.
-
HRSD completed the SWIFT Pilot program at its York River Treatment Plant in early 2017 before breaking ground on the SWIFT Research Center (SWIFT RC), which opened in May 2018. With the capability to produce up to one million gallons of SWIFT Water™ daily, the research conducted at the SWIFT RC has been used to inform the full-scale implementation of SWIFT, now under construction at HRSD’s James River Treatment and Nansemond River treatment plants.
-
The practice of augmenting aquifer or surface water drinking water supplies with wastewater that has undergone advanced levels of treatment has been effectively and safely accomplished in the US and around the globe for decades. This practice is known as indirect potable reuse. Even in Virginia, this practice has been used to augment a drinking water reservoir in Northern Virginia for more than 35 years.
-
SWIFT Water™ enters the aquifer at low pressures via recharge wells through permeable sand and gravel in the aquifer, hundreds of feet above the bedrock. It is not expected to disrupt or create fissures within the bedrock. As part of due diligence, HRSD has invested in a seismic monitoring network in Hampton Roads to capture data on regional seismicity before and after full-scale SWIFT facilities begin recharging.
HRSD modeled the effect of adding 100 million gallons of SWIFT Water™ daily as well as a model of adding 50 million gallons daily into the Potomac aquifer from HRSD’s James River and Nansemond plant locations. The results show a positive impact on nearly the entire Potomac aquifer in Virginia, increasing pressures west to the Fall Zone, as far north as Maryland and south beyond the North Carolina border. The increased pressure along the coast would inhibit saltwater contamination. The model further predicted that with the addition of 50 million gallons of SWIFT Water™ per day, the aquifer can support all existing permits for groundwater use, with capacity to allow for future withdrawals within the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Area.
-
The first phase of SWIFT full-scale implementation is currently underway at HRSD’s James River Treatment Plant in Newport News and the Nansemond Treatment Plant in Suffolk, VA, with plans to add up to three more full-scale SWIFT facilities at additional HRSD treatment plants in the future as environmental and regulatory needs arise. Replenishing the overdrawn groundwater resource with SWIFT Water™ can potentially eliminate more than 25 percent of HRSD’s discharge to local rivers with its first phase of full-scale implementation, thereby significantly reducing the total amount of nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) reaching the receiving streams, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. With implementation of future phases of SWIFT full-scale facilities, HRSD’s discharge to local rivers could ultimately be reduced by as much as 90%.
-
HRSD works closely with the Virginia Department of Health, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the US EPA. SWIFT is also overseen by the Potomac Aquifer Recharge Committee, a 10-member advisory board that monitors SWIFT independently.
-
HRSD is committed to providing transparency and opportunities for engagement throughout the implementation of SWIFT by proactively engaging with surrounding communities through open house events and community meetings, presentations, speaking engagements, social media and educational outreach and classroom resources. We also offer in-person and virtual tours of the SWIFT Research Center and encourage everyone to come and witness our advanced treatment process and taste some refreshing SWIFT Water™!
-
HRSD is integrating the $2.4 billion dollar cost of the SWIFT Program with its plan of responsible investment in wastewater infrastructure through 2040. The multiple environmental benefits of SWIFT implementation save the region an estimated $5 billion compared to complying with the Clean Water Act and Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) as separate localities.
-
SWIFT is regulated under the Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The SWIFT Research Center produces drinking water quality and was granted a Class V Permit-by-Rule, while the other SWIFT Facilities, due to their size, will have individual UIC permits. The James River UIC permit can be found here.
-
Replenishing the Potomac aquifer provides the region with added benefits of slowing or reversing land subsidence. Scientists believe that overuse of the aquifer causes about 25% of the sinking of land in parts of eastern Virginia. Replenishing the aquifer also helps increase pressures to address saltwater intrusion and bolsters groundwater supply.
-
Sodium is not added to SWIFT Water™, however, there are negligible amounts that remain following Advanced Water Treatment. These amounts are within the standards set by the Safe Drinking Water Act. Sodium and the other salts naturally present in SWIFT Water contribute to SWIFT Water’s compatibility with the aquifer which has similar levels of salts.
-
SWIFT helps HRSD and the region comply with the Clean Water Act and the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan by greatly reducing the amount of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, that are discharged into area waterways. As such, HRSD has received significant funding for the implementation of SWIFT through low-interest loans via the EPA Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act.
-
The SWIFT research team originally piloted membrane-based (reverse osmosis) and Ozone-Biofiltration-Adsorption advanced water treatment side by side to determine the most efficient and effective technology that would work with HRSD’s existing wastewater treatment process. Results of that pilot guided HRSD to choose the Ozone-Biofiltration-Adsorption advanced water treatment based on its equal ability to treat the water to meet standards and achieve better compatibility with the native groundwater. An added advantage of the selected process is that it effectively breaks down the chemical contaminants as opposed to reverse osmosis, which shifts contaminants to a concentrated waste stream that would require additional management and subsequent discharge to local waters. The multi-step SWIFT advanced water treatment process creates multiple barriers to remove potential contaminants and pathogens and closely matches the chemistry of the water already in the aquifer.
-
HRSD currently employs over 830 people. As SWIFT treatment facilities are fully integrated into the daily operation of HRSD facilities and other new infrastructure is added to support HRSD’s promise to treat wastewater and recover natural resource, HRSD staff will evolve and development to meet these needs.
-
The USGS extensometer located near the SWIFT Research Center provides precise, high-resolution measurements to the thousandths of a foot of the vertical land motion caused by changes in aquifer system thickness, driven by groundwater changes through aquifer replenishment from the SWIFT Research Center.
-
The settled solids resulting from the flocculation and sedimentation process are sent back to the wastewater treatment plant.
-
Granular Activated Carbon is used to remove Total Organic Carbon (TOC), PFAS, and other emerging contaminants. The useful life of the Granular Activated Carbon before it must be regenerated varies depending upon the influent TOC to the GAC contactors and the PFAS concentrations that must be removed. PFAS removal will generally control the regeneration frequency of the GAC, and the frequency is highly dependent on the physical design of the contactors and the operating approach. For full-scale SWIFT facilities, a reasonable expectation is about a six- month reactivation interval, though HRSD continues to study approaches for minimizing utilization of GAC using approaches such as model-based process control and PFAS polishing by ion exchange.
-
After flocculation/sedimentation, removal of dissolve organics such as pharmaceuticals, sweeteners, etc. occur during ozonation and biofiltration. In addition, the SWIFT Advanced Water Treatment process includes Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) which has been demonstrated to effectively remove PFAS and other emerging contaminants to the levels proposed in drinking water standards.
-
Though the SWIFT Advanced Water Treatment process was purpose-built to remove organic contaminants that are human-derived, there are trace levels of some of these contaminants still present in SWIFT Water™.
HRSD routinely monitors for a suite of these human-derived contaminants, utilizing an approach known as “indicator monitoring.” While it’s not possible to routinely monitor for the thousands of contaminants that may be present, HRSD has adopted a strategy recommended by national experts in potable reuse projects (Framework for Direct Potable Reuse, Tchobanoglous, et al. 2015). Utilizing information about commercial chemical and pharmaceutical use and coupled with exhaustive chemical analyses to identify the contaminants frequently present in wastewater (including HRSD wastewater), HRSD is monitoring for the presence of indicator compounds. Utilizing information about commercial chemical and pharmaceutical use and coupled with exhaustive chemical analyses to identify the contaminants frequently present in wastewater (including HRSD wastewater), HRSD is monitoring for the presence of indicator compounds.
These indicators are broadly classified as those relevant to validate treatment efficacy and those relevant for evaluating risk to public health. In the case of the treatment efficacy indicators, these chemicals are structurally like other chemical contaminants of concern and are useful for evaluating the performance of the individual treatment processes present in the SWIFT facility. Observing good removal of these compounds tells us that the treatment is working to remove the other compounds that react the same way in these treatment processes. The public health indicators are those chemical contaminants that are known or strongly suspected to have an impact on public health, though they are not currently regulated in drinking water. In all cases, SWIFT Water concentrations are well below the thresholds established to protect public health.
Through continual innovation, HRSD has found ways to further optimize the SWIFT Advanced Water Treatment process, getting even better removal of contaminants. One of our more recent success stories involves the removal of a chemical known as 1,4-dioxane. This compound is classified by EPA as a probable human carcinogen and can be found in our household cleaning, personal care and cosmetic products. The state of New York has established a regulatory limit for this contaminant in drinking water at 1 part per billion (ppb). New York is the only state thus far to have implemented a regulatory limit.
The concentration of 1,4 dioxane in SWIFT Water™ is routinely less than 0.1 ppb since the implementation of innovative controls in the biofiltration process in the SWIFT facility. HRSD is meticulously balancing the ideal resources and environmental conditions for a specific population of microbes that are highly effective at degrading 1,4 dioxane.
For those interested in the science behind this, this level of removal is achieved through a process known as co-metabolism. In this case, one of the many different populations of microbes in the biofilters can metabolize propane as an energy source. As it happens, the enzyme responsible for consuming propane will also break down 1,4 dioxane. Through careful research, HRSD demonstrated the efficacy of using propane to boost 1,4 dioxane removal in experimental biofilters. Following that success, HRSD implemented propane addition within the biofilters at the SWIFT Research Center and has incorporated it into the design of the future Nansemond full-scale SWIFT facility. We’ve even shared our success and research experience with a local industry so that they could reduce the amount of 1,4 dioxane in their wastewater before it is discharged to our James River SWIFT facility.
-
The Potomac aquifer is the largest and deepest aquifer in Eastern Virginia, extending to a depth of more than 3,000 feet and stretching from Georgia to southern New Jersey. It is the primary drinking water source for roughly four million Virginians and is the most predominantly used aquifer in the Virginia Coastal Plain.
-
The pipe, or recharge well, for aquifer recharge at the SWIFT Research Center goes approximately 1400 feet deep. The water enters the aquifer through a series of eleven (11) screened segments of the well located between 500 and 1,400 feet below the land surface. These screen segments access the coarse layers of sands and gravels in the aquifer where water is easily transmitted.