AWWA INF55781

Elizabethtown Water Company (EWC) serves approximately one million people in Central New Jersey. In 1996, EWC completed construction of the Canal Road Water Treatment Plant (CRWTP). The CRWTP is a state of the art ozone treatment plant, which was originally rated for 40 MGD. The construction cost for the facility was $100 million. Based on demand projections through 2005, EWC determined that the rated and peaking capacity of the Canal Road Plant would have to be increased to 60 MGD and 72 MGD, respectively. This paper describes how EWC was able to work with its regulator, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), and find a solution that increased the rated capacity of the CRWTP to 60 MGD, a 50% increase, for less than $7 Million. This project represents a strong argument for the use of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems to operate and monitor water treatment processes. In this case, the historical record that SCADA provided allowed EWC to increase the rated capacity of the CRWTP by 50% without the addition of a $20 million flocculation/sedimentation basin.