AWWA MTC64576

Tampa Bay Water currently owns a 25.0 MGD seawater desalination water treatment plant (WTP) located adjacent to the TECO Power Plant in Apollo Beach, Florida referred to as the Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant (TBSDP). This facility has experienced difficulties meeting the necessary water quality goals following filtration in order to provide high quality pretreated feed water to the seawater reverse osmosis membrane system. This overall project is a multi-phased project consisting of several major phases, including piloting, final design, permitting, construction, start-up and long-term operation. The first phase of the overall project focused on the pilot study portion of the pretreatment remediation. This phase was completed in 2004 as part of the pre-proposal efforts for the retainage of a replacement contractor. With the selection of the American Water-Pridesa Team, the next phase of this project focused on permitting and final design of the remediation of the plant. This paper presents the different steps, requirements, preliminary studies and laboratory analyses necessary to obtain the various permits for the reverse osmosis facility modifications within a tight schedule. A pilot study was performed concurrently with the permit process in order to support the permit application packages. The seven permits to be obtained were: Drinking Water Construction permit from Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP); Building Permit from Hillsborough County; National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit from FDEP for the concentrate discharge back into the Tampa Bay; Sanitary waste permit from Hillsborough County; Solid waste approval from Hillsborough County; Air pollution permit from Hillsborough County-Environmental Protection Commission; and, Environmental Resource Permit (ERP) from FDEP (not discussed in this paper). Includes figure.