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On February 28, 2002, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) promulgated the new Arsenic Rule and set the MaximumContaminant Level (MCL) for arsenic at 10 ug/L. This lower arsenic MCL will result inmany groundwater systems needing to treat their water supplies to comply with this rule.The USEPA estimates that approximately 3,300 water systems will be impacted by the newArsenic Rule, the overwhelming majority of these systems are small groundwater systemsserving less than 3,300 people.There are several technologies that the USEPA has identified as Best Available Technologies(BAT) for arsenic removal including ion exchange, activated alumina, reverse osmosis,electrodialysis reversal, and coagulation/filtration. However, in the Arsenic Rule, the USEPArecognized an emerging technology pioneered by CH2M HILL in 1994 (Chang, 1994) forarsenic removal, the coagulation/microfiltration (C/MF) process.Prior to and during the Arsenic Rule development, the USEPA and others suggested that theC/MF process was too expensive and complex for small systems, and that only a few largewater systems would consider this technology. However, the cost of membranes,microfiltration in particular, continues to decrease and become competitive with othertechnologies. In addition, the water industry has gained significant operational experiencewith microfilters over the last 10 years, resulting in a greater level of comfort about theircomplexity.The C/MF process has been pilot tested at several locations for the removal of arsenicincluding Albuquerque, New Mexico (Chwirka, 2000), Fallon, Nevada, and El Paso, Texas, and Phoenix,Arizona (Amy, 2000). This paper presents a fundamental background relatedto the C/MF process for arsenic removal and provides a summary of pilot testing that hasbeen performed at several sites. Includes 4 references, figures.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 03/05/2003 Number of Pages: 14File Size: 1 file , 340 KB