Strategic pathways for the sustainable management of water treatment plant residuals

In North America, the rapid movement away from the direct discharge of water treatment plant (WTP) residual streams to receiving environments has resulted in considerable benefits to the drinking water industry in terms of enhancing environmental stewardship practices and supporting source water protection strategies. Over the past 20 years, application based research on appropriate technologies to treat residual streams such as filter backwash water (FBWW) has promoted the development of integrated process design that presents recycling as a viable residual management option. However, as utilities continue to develop and expand their main process lines to comply with more stringent government regulations encompassing both water quality and residual disposal practices, the development of sustainable residual management practices is expected to become a more prominent issue for this industry. The purpose of this paper is to present, from a critical point of view, the matrix of issues that currently exist regarding WTP residual streams and strategic pathways that would enhance future decision making processes for achieving long-term residual management solutions for the drinking water industry.