EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS FROM USER FEES IN MUNICIPAL WASTEWATER TREATMENT1

ABSTRACT: The Environmental Protection Agency administers a construction grant program to encourage abatement of wastewater pollution by sharing with municipalities the costs of wastewater treatment facilities. The enabling legislation (P.L. 92–500) specifies that EPA's cost share will be 75% of construction costs. It further requires municipalities to collect user fees from industrial users of the facilities to repay that part of the federal grant allocable to the treatment of industrial wastewater. The municipality must return half of the user fees collected to the U.S. Treasury; the municipality is allowed to retain the remaining half. Retention by municipalities of these user fees lowers their effective cost shares and results in the following consequences: (1) a bias for municipalities to select certain kinds of abatement techniques regardless of whether or not they are the least-cost techniques from the national perspective; (2) a bias for municipalities to select larger-than-optimal scales of abatement facilities; (3) a hidden federal subsidy to industry; and (4) grants that favor industrial communities. This article examines the legislative and regulatory requirements for user charges, derives the algebraic expressions for calculating the real federal, municipal, and industrial cost shares with user fees; computes municipal cost shares for selected values of the determinant factors; evaluates efficiency and other consequences of current user fee arrangements; and concludes that the efficiency distortions brought about by the impacts of user fees on cost sharing could be eliminated by requiring that all user fees collected from industry against the federal cost share be returned to the U.S. Treasury.     

珠江三角洲经济区污水系统设计原则

分析了珠江三角洲经济区水环境现状；阐述了城市污水分散处理与集中处理的利弊；指出污水深度处理与回用是形成良性水循环的有效途径，更是经济可持续发展的必然要求；通过对已建排水系统存在问题的分析，探讨了珠江三角洲经济开发区污水系统的设计原则，认为污水系统规划要改变传统设计方法，应方便再生水回用，由经济、技术、地理等综合因素确定排水分区、污水厂厂址与数量，选择适合各排水区域水质水量的工艺流程，预留污水厂与再生水回用管线分期发展的空间，应优先选用国产污水处理设备，尽可能维持城市河涌自然生态。     

Cost-effectiveness of two operational models at industrial wastewater treatment plants in China: A case study in Shengze town,Suzhou City

The widespread illegal discharge of industrial wastewater in China has posed significant challenges to the effective management of industrial wastewater treatment plants (IWTPs) and caused or exacerbated critical social issues such as trans-boundary environmental pollution. This study examines two operational strategies, decentralized model and an innovative integrated model, that have been used in the industrial town of Shengze (located in Suzhou City) over the past two decades at IWTPs handling wastewater from the city’s dyeing industry. Our cost-effectiveness analysis shows that, although the operational cost of IWTPs under the integrated model is higher than under the original decentralized model, the integrated model has significantly improved IWTP performance and effectively reduced illegal discharge of industrial wastewater. As a result, the number of reported incidents of unacceptable pollution in local receiving water bodies had declined from 13 in 2000–1 in 2008. Key factors contributing to the success of the innovative integrated model are strong support from municipal and provincial leaders, mandatory ownership transfer of IWTPs to a centralized management body, strong financial incentives for proper plant management, and geographically-clustered IWTPs.     

DBO模式在污水处理行业的应用研究

DBO模式是PPP模式之一,在国家大力推进PPP模式之际,尝试开展DBO模式在污水处理行业的应用研究,分析污水处理行业发展趋势与问题,DBO模式在污水处理行业应用的适用领域与适用条件、优点,提出DBO模式在污水处理行业的推行路径,希望通过DBO模式解决污水处理行业的问题,促进行业健康发展。本文认为,城镇、乡镇与村庄生活污水处理、工业企业废水治理等领域具有项目设计与建设非标准化、项目需求明确、责任边界清晰、项目运营服务质量和成本容易监测等特点,应用DBO模式具有可行性。这些领域内的项目若有可靠的建设资金来源、稳定的运行费用保障机制、急于改善的区域水环境质量及严格的环保设施运行需求,适合采用DBO模式。DBO模式可以提高这些项目的建设质量和运营质量,节约成本,缩短建设周期,提高抗风险能力。同时,在行业层面,能够解决这些领域面临的项目设计不合理、建设质量不高、运行费用高、运行管理不善、闲置等诸多问题,可以促进先进实用技术和管理经验的应用,提高行业技术和运营管理水平的整体进步。因此,建议政府从开展实施试点、制定行业规范、加大宣传和推广、颁布政策文件等方面大力推进DBO模式在污水处理行业的应用。     

Chemical industry wastewater treatment

Treatment of chemical industrial wastewater from building and construction chemicals factory and plastic shoes manufacturing factory was investigated. The two factories discharge their wastewater into the public sewerage network. The results showed the wastewater discharged from the building and construction chemicals factory was highly contaminated with organic compounds. The average values of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) were 2912 and 150 mgO₂/l. Phenol concentration up to 0.3 mg/l was detected. Chemical treatment using lime aided with ferric chloride proved to be effective and produced an effluent characteristics in compliance with Egyptian permissible limits. With respect to the other factory, industrial wastewater was mixed with domestic wastewater in order to lower the organic load. The COD, BOD values after mixing reached 5239 and 2615 mgO₂/l. The average concentration of phenol was 0.5 mg/l. Biological treatment using activated sludge or rotating biological contactor (RBC) proved to be an effective treatment system in terms of producing an effluent characteristic within the permissible limits set by the law. Therefore, the characteristics of chemical industrial wastewater determine which treatment system to utilize. Based on laboratory results engineering design of each treatment system was developed and cost estimate prepared.     

A MODELLING METHOD FOR EVALUATING WATER QUALITY POLICIES IN NONSERIAL RIVER SYSTEMS1

ABSTRACT: This paper describes a modelling method which simplifies the evaluation of water quality policies for nonserial (branching) river systems. The method introduces dummy facilities at the junctions of the major tributary branches with the mainstream as replacements for the facilities and activities on the tributaries. The cost functions for the dummy facilities and the DO and BOD concentrations at the junctions as determined for each tributary are introduced into the mainstream serial system model which is then solved for the optimal values of the mainstream treatment plant efficiencies, the dummy facility effeciencies, and the tributary system DO and BOD concentrations using nonlinear programming. Given the optimum values for the dummy facility efficiencies and the values for the tributary system DO and BOD concentrations, the optimum values for the tributary treatment plant efficiencies are found using nonlinear programming. The method is applied to a river system with a mainstream and one major tributary which contain industrial and municipal organic and thermal polluters and their associated wastewater treatment plants.     

ON THE CENTRALIZATION OF WASTEWATER TREATMENT FACILITIES1

ABSTRACT. Two factors affecting the centralization of wastewater treatment facilities were investigated; the cost of collection and treatment systems and the performance of treatment plants. Based on computer-generated minimum cost designs, wastewater collection networks were found to be characterized by diseconomies of scale of magnitude similar to the reported economies of scale for wastewater treatment works. The combined costs of collection and treatment are U-shaped functions from which the least cost size of collection and treatment systems were found for particular values of population density. Examination of the day-to-day performance of five metropoitan-area waste-water treatment plants revealed that, for time series shorter than one month, the day-to-day variation in effluent quality was random, although the variation in quantity discharged was distinctly non-random. The performances of all five plants on any given day showed little correlation. This suggests that the decentralization of treatment facilities can produce benefits both through the reduction in quantities of waste discharged at a given point and through in-stream averaging of the varying performances of several treatment plants. Since the cost function of collection and treatment combined is generally flat in the region of the minimum-cost size, little penalty is invoked to gain the potential benefits of treatment plant decentralization.     

采用BOT投资方式建设小型污水处理厂的成功经验——以吉木萨尔县为例

随着城市建设进程的加快,我国城镇水环境污染问题已不容乐观。究其原因是小城镇集中排污主体的污水处理设施不能同步配套建设,或建成后不能正常运行。基于此,本文以吉木萨尔县建设城镇污水处理厂为例,分析了如何采用BOT投资方式建设小型污水处理厂,有效缓解治理城镇生活污水资金不足的问题,亦是对探索BOT公司参与城镇污水处理方式取得...     

Fuzzy-based wastewater quality indices for pollution classification: a case study in the United Arab Emirates

This paper presents a fuzzy logic-based tool for assessing the pollution concentration of effluents generated by various industrial and commercial activities. The study proposes a fuzzy overall pollution compliance index (FOPCI) (range 0–100) to classify the wastewater discharged from various types of properties present in Ajman, United Arab Emirates. The work mainly focused on three types of pollution that can occur at the inlets of the wastewater treatment plant of Ajman, due to discharge of industrial and commercial effluents, namely pH pollution, salt pollution, and organic pollution. The proposed FOPCI integrates six characteristics, namely pH, Cl^?, SO₄ ^2?, conductivity, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and fats, oils, and greases (FOG) values into a readily understandable scale. The FOPCI is developed by using the Fuzzy Inference System Toolbox available in MATLAB in two steps, in which during the first step, three sub-indices, namely fuzzy pH compliance index, fuzzy salt compliance index, and fuzzy organic compliance index are developed. It is then processed in the second stage to develop the FOPCI. Fuzzy rules are used to classify effluents quality into six categories based on the concentration of pollutant in the effluent, namely “Excellent Quality”, “Good Quality”, “Acceptable Quality”, “Moderately Polluting”, “Highly Polluting”, and “Extremely Polluting”. This linguistic classification using fuzzy logic will be helpful as a decision support system to provide an outline for the prioritization of plans for wastewater management based on the values of the indices developed.     

Factorial fuzzy programming for planning water resources management systems

In this paper, we propose a factorial fuzzy programming (FFP) approach for planning water resources management systems. The conventional fuzzy method cannot reflect the interactions among uncertain system parameters nor quantify their interactive effects. This may lead to important interrelationships among system parameters being neglected in systems analysis, and the derived decisions may not be robust enough to support the management under uncertainties. The objective of this study is to develop an FFP approach to deal with such interactive uncertainties. Factorial analysis (FA) was integrated with the fuzzy technique to quantify the effects of multiple fuzzy modeling parameters on the system performance and to reveal their implicit interrelationships. A flood-diversion planning case was studied to illustrate the applicability of the FFP approach. The individual and interactive effects of fuzzy parameters on the system objectives were evaluated. The influential effects were identified and the implicit interrelationships within influential interactions were revealed.     

垫江县次级河流环境现状分析

垫江县次级河流部分水质指标不容乐观,以种植污染、养殖污染和生活污染为代表的农村面源污染日渐成为垫江河流污染的主要因素。改变垫江河流水质现状,必须尽量减少化肥农药施用,改变传统养殖模式,完善农村垃圾收运系统,加快建设农村废水治理设施。     

DECISION SUPPORT FOR ALLOCATION OF WATERSHED POLLUTION LOAD USING GREY FUZZY MULTIOBJECTIVE PROGRAMMING1

ABSTRACT: This paper uses the grey fuzzy multiobjective programming to aid in decision making for the allocation of waste load in a river system under versatile uncertainties and risks. It differs from previous studies by considering a multicriteria objective function with combined grey and fuzzy messages under a cost benefit analysis framework. Such analysis technically integrates the prior information of water quality models, water quality standards, wastewater treatment costs, and potential benefits gained via in‐stream water quality improvement. While fuzzy sets are characterized based on semantic and cognitive vagueness in decision making, grey numbers can delineate measurement errors in data collection. By employing three distinct set theoretic fuzzy operators, the synergy of grey and fuzzy implications may smoothly characterize the prescribed management complexity. With the aid of genetic algorithm in the solution procedure, the modeling outputs contribute to the development of an effective waste load allocation and reduction scheme for tributaries in this subwatershed located in the lower Tseng‐Wen River Basin, South Taiwan. Research findings indicate that the inclusion of three fuzzy set theoretic operators in decision analysis may delineate different tradeoffs in decision making due to varying changes, transformations, and movements of waste load in association with land use pattern within the watershed.     

浙江省环境污染与经济发展关系的实证研究

本文在环境库兹涅茨曲线假设基础上,采用1991—2014年浙江省环境和经济数据,运用回归模型对其环境污染与经济发展的关系进行实证检验。结果表明:浙江工业废水、工业废气、工业SO2排放量和工业固体废弃物产生量均符合EKC假设,其中工业SO2和工业废水人均排放量与人均GDP呈倒U形关系,拐点分别出现在2005年与2010年;工业废气排放量和工业固体废弃物产生量尚处于倒U形左侧上升阶段,其中工业固体废弃物人均产生量已接近拐点。而生活污水排放量与EKC假设并不相符,人均生活污水排放量与人均GDP呈单调递增的线形关系。对EKC驱动因子的分析表明,加强政府环境治理,以不断完善的环境法规推动产业结构升级调整,以持续的技术进步与创新促进关键行业节能减排,有利于克服规模效应,推动浙江环境污染与经济发展的关系早日实现解耦。     

Application of Multiobjective Programming to Water Quality Management in a River Basin

In this work on the management of water quality in a river basin by means of multiobjective programming, the programming model consists of three objectives that include simultaneously both economic and environmental factors. These objectives are the water quality of the rivers, the cost of wastewater treatment and the assimilative capacity of the rivers. In particular, this research is the first to take into account the last objective. For practical application, this paper proposes two methods of multiobjective programming, the constraint method and the step method. Furthermore, to illustrate the application of these techniques to water quality management problems, we use the basin of Tzeng-Wen River, Taiwan, as a case study. The results show that these methods work satisfactorily to improve the water quality, to ascertain the economic cost of wastewater treatment, and to allocate allowable loading in a manner of equality from non-inferior solutions. Alternatively, these methods provide important information for regulatory agencies to implement pollution control of river water.     

Wastewater management in small- and medium-size enterprises: case studies

Wastewater management in small and medium-sized enterprises representing the chemical and food industries was investigated. The results showed that wastewater discharged from an ink-production factory was highly contaminated with organic pollutants. Anaerobic biological treatment followed by chemical coagulation using ferric chloride aided with lime proved to be very effective and produced an effluent that complied with national regulatory standard for wastewater discharge into public sewage network. Also, management of wastewater from a confectionery factory representing the food sector was carried out. Aerobic biological treatment using plastic-packed trickling filter proved to be an effective treatment method. However, application of in-plant control measures alleviated the requirement for the construction of a wastewater treatment plant. The applied pollution prevention and cleaner production measures involved good housekeeping, recovery of spent chocolate, modification of floor cleaning and installation of suction devices for the removal of sugar and starch powders. All improvement measures were documented by cost/benefit analysis.     

石油矿区生活垃圾与污水的治理

石油矿区生活污染源排放的污染物问题越来越突出。生活污水的治理可采用建设集中生活污水处理厂,处理后的污水用于绿化。生活垃圾实行分类、袋装化,对各种垃圾进行分类处理。做好油田矿区生活污染物治理,管理部门应制定相应管理办法和有关规定。环卫系统与物资回收部门,应搞好实施方案     

Environmental impact minimization of a total wastewater treatment network system from a life cycle perspective

Synthesis of distributed wastewater treatment plants (WTPs) has focused on cost reduction, but never on the reduction of environmental impacts. A mathematical optimization model was developed in this study to synthesize existing distributed and terminal WTPs into an environmentally friendly total wastewater treatment network system (TWTNS) from a life cycle perspective. Life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to evaluate the environmental impacts of principal contributors in a TWTNS. The LCA results were integrated into the objective function of the model. The mass balances were formulated from the superstructure model, and the constraints were formulated to reflect real wastewater treatment situations in industrial plants. A case study validated the model and demonstrated the effect of the objective function on the configuration and environmental performance of a TWTNS. This model can be used to minimize environmental impacts of a TWTNS in retrofitting existing WTPs in line with cleaner production and sustainable development.     

Volatile organic compound emissions from wastewater treatment plants in Taiwan: legal regulations and costs of control

This study assessed volatile organic compound (VOC) emission characteristics from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in five Taiwanese industrial districts engaged in numerous manufacturing processes, including petrochemical, science-based industry (primarily semiconductors, photo-electronics, electronic products and biological technology), as well as multiple manufacturing processes (primarily pharmaceuticals and paint manufacturing). The most aqueous hydrocarbons dissolved in the wastewater of Taiwanese WWTPs were acetone, acrylonitrile, methylene chloride, and chloroform for the petrochemical districts; acetone, chloroform, and toluene for the science-based districts; and chlorinated and aromatic hydrocarbons for the multiple industrial districts. The aqueous pollutants in the united WWTPs were closely related to the characteristics of the manufacturing plants in the districts. To effectively prevent VOC emissions from the primary treatment section of petrochemical WWTPs, the updated regulations governing VOC emissions were issued by the Taiwanese Environmental Protection Administration in September 2005, legally mandating a seal cover system incorporating venting and air purification equipment. Cost analysis indicates that incinerators with regenerative heat recovery are optimal for treating high VOC concentrations, exceeding 10,000ppm as CH(4), from the oil separation basins. However, the emission concentrations, ranging from 100 to 1000ppm as CH(4) from the other primary treatment facilities and bio-treatment stages, should be collected and then injected into the biological oxidation basins via existing or new blowers. The additional capital and operating costs required to treat the VOC emissions of 1000ppm as CH(4) from primary treatment facilities are less than US$0.1 for perm(3) wastewater treatment capacity.     

A fuzzy analytic network process for multi-criteria evaluation of contaminated site remedial countermeasures

The Analytic Network Process (ANP) has been proposed to incorporate interdependence and feedback effect in the prioritization of remedial countermeasures using a hierarchical network decision model, but this approach seems to be incapable of capturing the vagueness and fuzziness during value judgment elicitation. The aim of this paper is to present an evaluation method using a fuzzy ANP (FANP) approach to address this shortcoming. Triangular fuzzy numbers (TFN) and their degree of fuzziness are used in the semantic scale as human judgment expressed in natural language is most often vague and fuzzy. The method employs the alpha-cuts, interval arithmetic and optimism index to transform the fuzzy comparative judgment matrix into set of crisp matrices, and then calculates the desired priorities using the eigenvector method. A numerical example, which was drawn from a real-life case study of an uncontrolled landfill in Japan, is presented to demonstrate the process. Results from the sensitivity analysis describe how the fuzziness in judgment could affect the solution robustness of the prioritization method. The proposed FANP approach therefore could effectively deal with the uncertain judgment inherent in the decision making process and derive the meaningful priorities explicitly from a complex decision structure in the evaluation of contaminated site remedial countermeasures.     

峨眉河乐山市中区段水环境污染及防治对策

为了确保峨眉河乐山市中区段水环境质量满足社会经济的发展，在全面调查峨眉河流域污染现状的基础上，对该流域水环境进行系统的分析和评价，得出乐山市中区段水环境质量达到国家《地表水环境质量标准》（GB3838—2002）中Ⅱ类水质标准，流域的主要污染为城镇生活污染源。同时，计算出峨眉河的水环境容量，提出对污染源施行总量控制方案。并根据峨眉河流域污染源的实际情况，针对城镇生活污染源、工业污染源和面源的不同特点提出具体的防治对策。