BLACK CREEK PASSIVE MEDIA FILTRATION TECHNOLOGY WATER TREATMENT PROJECT

Clay County

Sustainable Water Infrastructure Group, LLC (SWIG) contracted with CDM Smith, the prime contract holder with the St. Johns River Water Management District (District), to design a 13.6 acres Phosphorus Elimination System (PES).  The PES is essential for removing tannins from Black Creek Source water to meet the project’s water quality and color requirements. SWIG was also awarded a procurement contract from the District to manufacture and deliver over 30,000 cubic yards of media formulated for tannin removal. The media is designed to meet the water quality color removal criteria for up to 10 years before needing to be replaced. The spent media will be re-used for planting soil and composting product applications.

 SWIG’s engineered media contains a blend of components that are targeted at organic acid removal through abiotic and biotic processes. Adsorption is an abiotic process when the negatively charged acids are attracted to the media’s positively charged components. Immobilization and uptake are biotic processes in which microbes and plants transform the adsorbed organic acids to be retained by plants and soil microbes. These two processes complement each other to provide long-term color removal from Black Creek source water. 

Additional Project Background:

 The District is implementing one of Florida’s largest inter-basin water transfer project to pump water from the South Fork of Black Creek in Middleburg to Lake Brooklyn in Keystone Heights in Clay County.  This project includes a pump station, 17-mile long 30-inch pipeline, and the color removal treatment system that is the subject of this procurement.  The fundamental goal of the project is to recharge the Upper Floridan aquifer with the treated Black Creek water while helping restore the hydrology of the lake.   Black Creek source water is highly colored due to the natural presence of tannins.  Other stressors in Black Creek water include excess lead, nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P). As such, a key criterion of the project is that the treated discharge of Black Creek water must maintain a flow-weighted geometric mean of Lake Brooklyn’s waters within Class III Clear Lake Classification with an average color of no more than 40 True (filtered) Platinum-Cobalt Units (PCU) over the entire duration of the project.