Following the successful use of the Accel-o-Fac® wastewater treatment upgrade at the Harbour View wwtp (owned and operated by the Jamaican National Water Commission), Gurney Environmental won a follow-on order to design, supply and install an Accel-o-Fac® upgrade for the Greater Portmore wwtp.
In a 10 May 2019 news release, the National Water Commission (NWC) announced that work had begun at the facility to perform the upgrade to the existing wwtp. The NWC had earlier commissioned an engineering study to review the existing status of the treatment plant as well to develop a proposal to rehabilitate and upgrade the facility. These tasks were mainly in preparation for the plant to receive additional flows from new sub-divisions in the municipality as well as meeting and adhering to all environmental standards.
A Redesign and Expansion of the Existing WWTP
During the conversion and upgrade, the contractor has been removing the centre bank between the existing primary and secondary ponds of each train, and then deepening the ponds as much as possible. In the sat map below, the right-hand train had been drained prior to work starting.
The revised layout arrangement will reduce the surface loading in the primary stage and with the Accel-o-Fac® System’s ability to handle higher loading rates as compared to standard WSP’s, the plant should still meet the treatment requirements utilising 3 stages of treatment instead of previous 4 stages.
A Search for a Truly Long-Term Sustainable Upgrade Option
The Greater Portmore Accel-o-Fac® wastewater treatment upgrade option was chosen by the NWC based on the system's well proven and time-tested sustainability credentials, plus its ability to improve the wastewater treatment process in primary facultative, secondary and polishing lagoons. The system enables operators to extend the life and increase treatment capacity of their existing wastewater treatment assets.
The Accel-o-Fac® system is advanced technology that can be used as a new-build design or to upgrade existing lagoon based systems (WSP’s), providing substantially accelerated processing rates, increased DO levels, elimination of short circuiting, accelerated disinfection, odour elimination and accelerated total sludge digestion — all of which allows greater loads to be applied to existing lagoons, thereby extending their life whilst improving performance.
The installation of the Greater Portmore Accel-o-Fac® wastewater treatment upgrade will improve the load capacity of wastewater treatment infrastructure in the Kingstown area and has been chosen by the National Water Commission as their preferred solution.
