Polymer Solutions for Sensitive and Large-Scale Projects
Seva Iwinski Bray
Increased erosion and sedimentation are a leading cause of numerous detrimental environmental impacts that have led us to look for effective and environmentally responsible solutions. Chemical flocculants are looked to as a primary solution due to their ability to decrease land degradation, erosion and sedimentation, turbid discharges, as well as enhance restoration activities. Chemical flocculants in the anionic form are the most commonly used and widely accepted due to their safety to the environment and ability to meet low numeric discharge limits. Polymer flocculant treatment systems are often simple applications that include soil stabilization, dewatering treatment ditches, and various forms of sediment control and sheet flow clarification polymer enhanced BMPs. On smaller projects one or more of these treatment applications may be necessary. On larger projects multiple treatment applications for water treatment and sediment control may be paired together in a treatment train to achieve optimal results. Furthermore, on ongoing linear projects or robust and environmentally sensitive projects additional polymer enhanced treatment systems and creative and adaptable treatment setups may be needed to ensure discharge limits are met. This presentation will include examples of large scale, ongoing, and environmentally sensitive projects that needed highly adaptable treatment systems or additional treatment capabilities to achieve numeric discharge levels. These will include, but will not be limited to, a linear gas pipeline project, a major aggregate washing operation needing sediment and heavy metal removal, and a highly visible and environmentally sensitive Orlando theme park project.
Learning Objectives
- Learn how polyacrylamide flocculants can be used for large scale, complex, robust, and environmentally sensitive projects.
- Understand how to put together the many different polymer flocculant treatment applications for water treatment and sediment control to complete large, linear, or large-scale projects.
- View successful projects and case studies that utilized creative and out of the box solutions to achieve compliance discharge following the fundamental rules of flocculation.