Pier 35 Water Filtration Testing

+ POOL Filtration System

Official Water Filtration Testing near Pier 35: August – October 2024

Friends of + POOL and global sustainable development consultancy Arup have engineered a filtration system that brings raw river water to an acceptable microbiological standard for swimming. Its filtration system is installed onsite at Pier 35. While not accessible to the public, the floating prototype platform will be used daily by Water Quality Engineers and System Operators to track water quality and demonstrate the effectiveness of the system. The system is designed to reduce turbidity in the raw water; reduce particulate organics; and reduce pathogenic organisms (bacteria, virus, protozoa). This summer’s public demonstration of the system is intended to provide New York State and Friends of + POOL with the final data needed to move forward with the installation of NYC’s first water-filtering floating swimming pool.

Data will be shared with the public and submitted to the NYC Health Department and other city agencies. The results from the study will validate the suitability of the patented system and inform the full-scale system design to achieve the water quality conditions required. Results will show how the + POOL, and its innovative filtration system, will meet water quality standards recently detailed by City and State health departments for “novel” and “nontraditional” beaches, without the use of chemical disinfectants, while providing consistent recirculation of filtered water sourced from the river.

The scaled version of the filtration system is mounted on a 110 ft. x 36 ft. floating barge, moored in the waters south of Pier 35. It is composed of the following:

1. Intake Pump. A submersible pump will be suspended in the East River toabstract the raw water for the pilot facility at 22 gallons per minute. The pumpwill discharge into a 500 gallon feed tank fitted with an overflow back to theriver. The submersible pump will be fitted with an intake strainer basket (0.5”) toprotect against fish passage and larger debris.
2. Pre-filtration. The containerised filtration unit will be fitted with a feed pumpto allow water to be drawn from the feed tank to the filtration plant. Prior to thefiltration plant, the water is pumped through a 200 micron automatic washingstrainer to remove material that could damage or block the membrane filter.
3. Membrane filtration. The pre-filtered water is fed into the polymericultrafiltration membranes, which will treat the water for turbidity, bacteria,particulate organics and some viruses.
4. UV Disinfection. The final treatment step is the disinfection process. This willbe achieved by exposing the filtered water to ultraviolet (UV) irradiation.
5. Test Pool. Constructed of stainless steel, the test pool is a full scale portion ofthe full +POOL, and will function under the same operating and environmentalconditions as the full scale system and confirm the suitability of materialsand components. CFD modeling has been conducted on the full scale pool todesign the key elements reflected in the test pool.
6. Cleaning System. The membranes require periodic washing and spentwashwater will be returned to the East River. The membranes will requirechemical backwashing (CIP and Maintenance cleans). The chemical backwashwater will be stored on board the floating platform for safe disposal at the endof the testing period.

The ultrafiltration system is certified for 4-log removal of Giardia and Cryptosporidium and 1-log removal of viruses. The unit is certified to NSF/ANSI 419 to comply with the EPA Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT2ESWTR). Water quality in the river will be continually monitored with a submersible multi-parameter immersed sonde probe, relaying water quality data via telemetry.

About Arup

Dedicated to sustainable development, Arup is a collective of 20,000 designers, advisors and experts working across 140 countries. Founded to strive for humanity and excellence in everything that we do, we collaborate with our clients and partners, using imagination, technology and rigor to shape a better world.

Visit https://www.arup.com/.