Background Information and Challenge
As part of its grape processing operations, the Winery deposited process water that contained a certain amount of fine particles into two lagoons. During this process, the fine particles would settle out, and the process water, located on the surface, would then be discharged into the City’s water treatment facility. Over the years, the fine particles within the lagoons slowly accumulated to the point where they started to take up a significant portion of the lagoon’s capacity and increased the Total Suspended Solids (TSS) contained within the water. As this process continued, the TSS within the process water exceeded the allowable limits determined by the City. Due to these circumstances, the lagoons must be cleaned to eliminate particle accumulation using a dewatering process within the lagoon.
Solution
Layfield was contacted to provide a turn-key solution for dewatering and desludging the lagoon using Geotube® containers. The containers are manufactured with special high-strength woven geotextiles and are a very cost-effective option in dewatering applications. Adjacent to the lagoons, a Geotube® laydown area was constructed and lined to capture the filtrate water that was released from the Geotube® containers.
The water and solids were pumped from the lagoon. Prior to injection into the Geotube®, a cationic polyacrylamide polymer (flocculant) was added into the sludge slurry. The flocculant was used to bind the sludge particles together while releasing water from the particle. The solution was injected into the Geotube® containers, where water releases as a filtrate and solids remain in the Geotube® container.
Results
The solids were captured within the Geotube® containers, and the first lagoon and liner were cleaned to nearly a new state. While onsite, Layfield also performed a geomembrane liner inspection and completed liner repairs. The Geotube® containers performed as expected by releasing the filtrate water and trapping the solids. Over the next few months, the Geotube® containers continue to dewater. This will allow the Winery to reutilize the existing Geotube® containers to clean the second lagoon.
