ID Credit 1.1: WATER TREATMENT Intent: To reduce chemical and/or potentially hazardous discharges from the project site. Rationale: Water used in site or building-related systems, such as wastewater treatment facilities, cooling towers (water-based HVAC systems), steam boilers, decorative fountains, and/or laboratory or other manufacturing systems processes, often use chemical technology to treat characteristics of the water used. Chemical treatment is typically used to prevent mineral scale formation, control biological activity, and inhibit corrosion, as appropriate to each building system. Use of chemically treated waters often results in the chemicals themselves or their toxic byproducts being released to the environment, which is potentially damaging to ecosystems. Water treatment chemicals can be released into the environment via water discharge, air emissions, spills, spray, and drift. For example, in a cooling tower or decorative fountain, chlorine or some other biocide is commonly used to control biological activity and reduce pathogens. Most of the chlorine added to the system is rapidly discharged to the atmosphere as chlorine gas. Corrosion inhibitors such as zinc, molybdenates, and phosphates are discharged in the drift from a tower and spray from a fountain settling to the ground as well as through the sewer system with blowdown. Water softeners are often used to prevent scaling and as part of the water softener process, quantities of salt brine are discharged. Requirements: Use chemical-free water treatment technology in place of chemical treatment in site or building- related systems. 1. Provide a letter from the project engineer that includes a paragraph description of the water treatment system used and a diagram of how the system works. a) Specifically state the environmental benefit of the alternative system over a conventional system. b) State the chemicals and their quantities eliminated through the use of this alternative process. c) State how the treated water is discharged or disposed of and in what quantities. Technologies & Strategies: Electrical Field: Electronics are used to reduce scale build-up of limestone in plumbing systems from calcium or magnesium carbonate in the water. Electronic systems produce a pulsed, time-varying, induced electric field inside a PVC pipe that is fit directly into the cooling tower\'s recirculating water system. The electric signal changes the way minerals in the water precipitate, totally avoiding hard-lime scale by instead producing a non-sticking mineral powder in the bulk water. This powder is readily filterable and mostly removed during normal blowdown, or it settles loosely in the cooling tower basin for easy annual removal. Bacteria are incorporated into this mineral powder and therefore leave the system by blowdown, filtration, or settling. The encapsulated bacteria (some of which were injured via electroporation on their membrane walls, causing cell lysis) cannot reproduce, thus resulting in an exceedingly low bacteria population. Water softening is not necessary (in fact, it\'s discouraged) with this type of system treatment, and high cycles of concentration are usually obtainable, leading to significant water conservation.