Meeteetse Fights Microorganisms With Microfiltration

Recent data, however, showed that water quality in the river was declining. Also, during a 1994 sanitary survey, the US Environmental Protection Agency found a Giardia cyst in Meeteetse’s treated water and lowered the filtered water turbidity standard for the town from 0.5 to 0.2 ntu to provide better protection against Giardia.

Faced with deteriorating source water quality and increasingly stringent water quality standards, Meeteetse’s town officials became concerned that the conventional plant would not be able to supply the town’s residents with high-quality drinking water. Working with the Wyoming Water Development Commission (WWDC), town officials decided to pursue development of an alternative source—a nearby reservoir—and a water treatment plant to ensure a safe drinking water supply that would meet all standards. Microfiltration (MF) was evaluated as an alternative treatment technology that could provide higher removals of pathogens, especially resistant microorganisms such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium.

Meeteetse worked with a consulting engineer, The Sear Brown Group, and the WWDC to develop a plan for the new source of supply and treatment plant. The project schedule shown in the sidebar on page 116 shows the overall time line of the project, beginning with pilot tests in the fall of 1997 and 1998 all the way through to the start of operations in March 2001. Pilot-testing included the examination of MF systems that could provide high levels of disinfection to meet future standards and that could operate reliably and automatically without the need for coagulation. Alternative MF systems were bid and evaluated, and an MF system was selected in early 1999. Detailed design of the treatment plant was completed after the MF equipment was selected, thereby simplifying the construction drawings. The new plant and source of supply were constructed over an eight-month period.

New source of supply. Meeteetse applied for and obtained rights to some of the water flowing from Lower Sunshine Reservoir, which was owned by the Greybull Valley Irrigation District. Specifically, the town obtained rights to water that was seeping through the dam. The reservoir, about 7 mi (11 km) from town, is used primarily for irrigation water. During dry periods, the reservoir can be drawn down to low levels, raising concerns about the adequacy of the safe yield of water seeping through the dam. An investigation by the consulting firm showed that the yield of the drain under the right side of the dam (right toe drain) was 521 gpm (33 L/s) during October and November 1996. The flow in 1999, when three primary objectives: (1) to assess filtered water quality, (2) to develop design criteria for the full-scale treatment plant, and (3) to evaluate membrane fouling and the ability to clean the membrane.

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