Water and wastewater treatment plants using PVC pipe for their
chemical systems often experience leaks at the joints. This is because
the harsh chemicals in the system attack the solvent cement used to connect the pipe. Many plants have accepted the leaks as normal and continually replace the pipe, fittings and valves as they fail. But as one Colorado treatment plant found, these costly and time consuming repairs aren’t necessary. The plant is comprised of two independently operating complexes providing treatment to a combined total of approximately 2 million people. The plant’s disinfection building houses four sodium hypochlorite tanks and two sodium bisulfite tanks that feed two loops – one for each complex’s pump house. The plant treats about 130 million gallons of wastewater per day. The sodium hypochlorite is used to disinfect the treated water, and the sodium bisulfite dechlorinates the water before it’s discharged into a nearby river. These two treatment processes are critical – without one or both running smoothly, the entire plant would have to shut down.

Read the full case study here.