Case Studies

For more than 100 years, the West Palm Beach water system has served customers in the popular city, which hosts visitors from all over the world. For most of this time, Lake Okeechobee has been an important component of the system. The overtaxed water supply was augmented in the late 1980s with a 25-million-gallon-per-day (mgd) wellfield‹used sparsely due to potential environmental impacts. An Everglades restoration program also called for a portion of the lake¹s supply to be diverted, potentially drawing substantial volumes from the valuable resource.

To quench the city¹s thirst for a dynamic water reserve alternative, the city and CDM initiated a wetlands-based indirect potable reuse project. Its goals: to reduce the city¹s heavy reliance on Lake Okeechobee, accommodate and participate as an environmental partner in the Everglades ecosystem enhancement, and provide aquifer recharge for the community¹s future generations. Through CDM¹s creative design, a state-of-the-art, 10-mgd advanced wastewater treatment facility was developed to direct secondary wastewater through extensive advanced treatment, including wetland polishing, groundwater attenuation, and drinking water treatment. The resulting high-quality water now provides West Palm Beach with expanded water resources flexibility that provides multiple benefits:

• This first-of-its-kind, sustainable indirect potable reuse system protects the community¹s health and provides new sources of safe drinking water, lowering demand on existing potable supplies.
• Treated water is discharged at a wetland reuse site at rates that maintain and enhance the natural wetlands.
• Neighboring municipalities benefit from the added aquifer recharge and flow conveyance, and surrounding lakes affected by regional groundwater withdrawals receive a continuous supply of treated surface water.

CLIENT: City of West Palm Beach

LOCATION: West Palm Beach, Florida