The Cascading Road to Membrane Purchases

The long road to advanced filtration, catching early indicators before the RFP

For the past few decades, water treatment has been revolutionized by membranes that can filter out impurities smaller than 0.001 microns wide. Through microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration or reverse osmosis technology, membranes can filter out contaminants and microorganisms in water and wastewater, decreasing turbidity and making water safer and cleaner. Issam Najm and R. Rhodes Trussell illustrate how several research projects in the late 1980s revealed the potential behind membrane technology for treating water even more thoroughly than conventional filtration. This inspired an eruption of infrastructure developments in the United States and beyond that continues today, with billions being spent on new membranes to make water safer and cleaner than ever before. For manufacturers, it can be a race to get to these opportunities. The burning questions on the top of their lists include:
• What leads a utility to choose membrane technology?
• When do these indicators typically surface?
• How can membrane manufacturers locate these opportunities earlier?

To address these questions, the WatrHub team works towards uncovering insights and creating timelines of events leading up to key infrastructure decisions in water and wastewater. Included below is a general timeline for a typical treatment plant membrane project in the United States. You can start to see how several variables and the indicative events coalesce before an RFP goes out to bid for new membrane installs.

Following Triggers or Events that lead to a Membrane Purchase

Population Changes

A first stop on any search for membrane project indicators should be the US Census. According to USA Today, The U.S. population maintained a growth rate of 5.3% from 2010 to 2017. While a few metropolitan areas saw a decrease in population in this time frame, some cities saw their population triple. A population climb comes with the responsibility to ensure sufficient capacity to treat water and wastewater. This may mean a brand new water or wastewater facility, or an increase in capacity at an existing plant through the purchase of additional membranes. Population increase is considered the earliest indicator because as we retrace the steps leading to a membrane purchase, population growth usually appears years before a contract materializes. San Diego, California, for example, signed a contract for ultrafiltration membrane modules in December of 2017. Seven years earlier, the City’s population reached 1.3 million for the first time, and then 1.4 million in 2015, following a pattern of steady growth leading up to the purchase.

Green Cities

Another valuable indicator for membrane potential is to track the municipalities leading the way in green initiatives. Cities looking to reduce their carbon footprint or protect local water bodies may turn to membrane initiatives earlier than others. Fargo, North Dakota, for example, was looking for ways to save water and reduce energy use in 2006. The City’s wastewater treatment facility partnered with a nearby ethanol plant, providing reclaimed water in an area where drought put restraints on the availability of other water resources. This water reuse required the use of membrane technology to further treat the water, and by 2008, membrane technology was providing up to 2 MGD (million gallons a day) to the ethanol plant. Partnerships like this and other innovative solutions to environmental problems are likely to continue and get more creative.

Regulatory Changes

In Texas, drought has changed the water treatment landscape. Faced with water restrictions, the City of Abeline chose to make an exception to force the use of reclaimed water, opening the door for new membrane technology. Abilene’s Water Conservation Plan was first introduced in 2003, well before their membrane installation at their wastewater treatment facility. In 2011, two years before the City completed an order for new membranes, the City experienced its worst climate year in its history with high temperatures and drought. This, in accumulation with a population rise, paved the way for new membrane infrastructure. Regulatory changes like this reuse exception or new water quality standards can be very early indicators, with governing bodies factoring in months or years for a municipality to get into compliance.

EPA Database

Federal compliance data holds another key to anticipating membrane changes. Coeur D’Alene, Idaho began wastewater treatment plant tertiary treatment improvements in 2017. In 2016, coupled with a steep growth rate, we see effluent issues begin to crop up in the EPA violations database. These violations can have financial consequences if left unchecked and are a substantial motivator for plants to look into membrane technology or replace existing membranes that have reached the end of their useful life.

News Sources

Population growth, environmental challenges and regulatory demands all influence membrane projects, but so do the voices of the people drinking the water. News sources are often a reliable way to get at the heart of water quality issues, and citizen dissatisfaction is a strong motivator for city and county officials. Membrane technology is capable of treating a variety of water quality issues, from cyanotoxins produced by blue-green algae to disinfectant byproducts like trihalomethanes. In June 2018, a newspaper in Salem, Oregon spotlighted their deficient drinking water quality, comparing themselves to a nearby town with membrane treatment technology. While their city government hasn’t yet made any formal push for new technology, this news may be an early indicator of membranes in their future.

Time to Cascade

The utilities with the strongest likelihood to adopt new or replace end-of-life membranes are ones that accumulate several of these indicators over time. These Cascading Indicators can reveal much more about a future membrane project than any one indicator on its own. For example, plenty of cities experience high growth rates, but only some of these are committed to investigating new green initiatives. But when you cascade regulatory changes and EPA compliance challenges on top of growing or green-focused cities/utilities, you can really filter down to a strong and specific shortlist. Finally, adding in recent news sources as the last layer funnels the results to our ultimate goal: Identifying the utilities most likely to invest in membrane initiatives. The interconnected relationship between these cascading indicators reveals the full picture.

By Cascading Indicators, we quickly narrow down to specific utilities that are likely to purchase membranes. There are many cities in the US experiencing population growth. A portion of those cities may wish, or show intent to become green cities. Refining further, of those that become green cities, some may experience regulatory changes such as a new maximum contaminant level (MCL) for total nitrogen, this new MCL may lead to compliance issues for some water utilities. Of the utilities experiencing compliance issues, some may be put under pressure by their residents to make a change. At each cascading step, the list of potential membrane-purchasing utilities becomes smaller, yet more likely to purchase.

By digging into the historical data points of a utility, we are able to see which pain points drive their decisions. In this case, growing populations, water restrictions, regulatory changes, and public pressure led these utilities to choose membrane technology. Exercises like this can help uncover the best potential membrane plants one, two, or five years into the future.

WatrHub specializes in uncovering actionable insights and tangible utility pain points within the water industry. To Learn more about how WatrHub could help you uncover the cascading indicators for your technology, email Karen Sabich, Account Executive at WatrHub Inc.