In the previous post “Coping with Regulations and Standards through Asset Management Planning,” Heather and Ross discussed the possible options asset managers can consider so they can work on their asset management practice while complying with federal regulations and standards.
In this post, Heather and Ross discuss further.
Heather says:
And another aspect of the strategic direction or that strategic work is, even looking at the wastewater discharge as a resource as opposed to something you are trying to get rid.
Another possibility is, are there people who would want that water for irrigation, for example?
Or can it be used to supplement an aquifer or what else could you do with that wastewater besides discharging it to the receiving body? Are there any other options?
And there’s certainly a lot of talks now about wastewater reuse whether it’s direct or indirect. So, there are different ways of doing that where you discharge it into an aquifer and then pull it back out.
Or you create water that’s good enough to consume in a household or blend with your drinking water resource.
Another way to think about it might be, if you are creating a good effluent because the treasury requirements made you, then looking at that in a different way and seeing not as a disposal problem but rather a resource issue.
Like, oh is there a resource that we could use some other way? Is there a farmer that would want it for irrigation? Is there an industry or business that might want it?
So, having that strategic look may be taking a different angle and since we have to do this and spend a lot of money, is there a way to recoup on that money or use it in a different way?
Ross:
And I mean, I’m sure you have the same thing here. We have a few sites where we’ve got biodigesters, and they’re giving the gas recovery off those and then running the vehicles off that recovered gas, just around the treatment facility and things like that.
So, you start recovering energy as well through some of your processes instead of just letting it waste or flaring it, you can go, hey right we’ll do something different with that.
And again, that’s just an evolution of process and thinking, but that can be quite cost-effective in a concise payback period for the kit that you need to do that.
Heather:
And then again, just sort of that getting away from the managing assets to the asset management thinking of, if we are down in the weeds, we have to manage the assets that remove the nitrogen and phosphorous.
If we step back, we can take a different look and say, well long term, maybe tomorrow is not when we are going to do the change to potable reuse or something like that but maybe five years or ten years down the road.
So, as you take that step back, you take a different look and see if there may be something else you can do besides what you are doing now.
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