To reduce algal blooms and protect marine life in the Indian River Lagoon, the City of Palm Bay, FL, is upgrading its North Regional Water Reclamation Facility (NRWRF) to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus in its effluent water that is reused for industrial cooling and public access irrigation. Continuing our water and wastewater work with the City for the past 13 years, Wade Trim designed nutrient removal facilities at the NRWRF that are intended to prevent 18,000 pounds of total nitrogen and 1,000 pounds of total phosphorus from entering the environment annually.

The Indian River Lagoon system spans 156 miles of Florida’s eastern coastline. Since the 1990s, collective restoration efforts have been made by regional municipal treatment facilities, educational institutions, and federal, state and local governments to improve water quality. In 2016, Brevard County’s Save Our Lagoon Project Plan identified effluent nutrient reduction from Palm Bay’s NRWRF as the most cost-effective method to reduce total nitrogen loadings and subsequently awarded funding to the City to implement the improvements.

Nutrient levels in the reclaimed water produced by the 1.2-MGD treatment facility will be reduced by converting the aerated activated sludge treatment process to a single-stage nitrification Modified Ludzack-Ettinger process. This approach enabled the repurposing of some existing tankage to accommodate new treatment components, and two 347,000-gallon anoxic basins will be constructed. Additional improvements include new process piping and pumping systems, and new electrical and instrumentation facilities required for control and monitoring.

The nutrient removal facilities are scheduled to begin construction in the spring of 2020, with Wade Trim providing construction engineering services.