Sometimes it feels like creativity and innovation require investing huge amounts of money in research and development. This approach can lead to amazing new ideas, but practical innovation—what we call innovation with purpose—happens every day, and one of our water treatment operators just proved it (again). Faced with a problem that was reducing the efficiency of treatment and with an expensive quote from a contractor to address it, Woodard & Curran Plant Manager Jeffrey Fournier went to work on an alternative solution. Ultimately, he found a way to achieve significant performance improvements at less than 20% of the cost.
Clarifiers are a key part of the water purification process. Over time, solids removed from source water can accumulate, leading to clogs and reducing the efficiency of the process.. After years of use, the clarifiers at the Howe Street Water Treatment Facility, which supplies clean, safe drinking water to residents in Ashland, Mass., were in need of maintenance. They were no longer running efficiently, pushing energy costs up and potentially impacting treatment.
The typical solution to this problem would be to take the clarifiers off line for weeks and clean them, which would mean a potential disruption of service and a significant financial and time investment. Jeff figured there must be a better way and set about researching alternatives. His investigation led to a product that could address the accumulation with much less effort, requiring only a three-day change in operations that involved no disruption of service. Oh, and it cost about fourteen time less than the labor-intensive approach!
This is a great example of how public works professionals like Jeff are finding creative solutions to real problems in their communities every day. It shows how experienced treatment system operators are essential to keeping critical infrastructure running smoothly all across the country. And it demonstrates the power of a collaborative team of operators and engineers working to make the most of a community’s financial resources—a full-service firm helping address pressing challenges for our clients.
