Arizona water plant that uses GE’s ZeeWeed technology receives award

The Ak-Chin Indian Community’s surface water treatment plant in Arizona has received the 2013 Water Project of the Year award from the AZ Water Association. The plant uses GE’s ZeeWeed 500 advanced treatment technology.

Established in 2012, the plant has a capacity to produce 2.25 million gallons per day and provides drinking water to community members and Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino.

In addition, the plant provides enough capacity to cater to the needs of existing commercial operations as well as any future expansions.

The GE ZeeWeed 500 advanced filtration technology used by the plant separates particles, bacteria and viruses from water without a high usage of energy or chemicals. It is currently in use in over 1,000 plants across the world.

The technology is capable of treating deteriorated or high-variation raw water sources to produce high and stable drinking water.

Ak-Chin Indian Community capital project manager Jayne Long said: "We chose GE’s ZeeWeed technology for our surface water treatment plant because it is the same technology that we have in our award-winning water reclamation facility."

GE’s ZeeWeed ultrafiltration membranes use a semipermeable membrane barrier to reject suspended solids, bacteria, viruses, endotoxins and other pathogens in water to produce treated water known as permeate with high purity and low silt density.

The process acts as a pretreatment for surface water, seawater and biologically treated municipal effluent before undergoing reverse osmosis and other membrane water treatment systems.

The Ak-Chin Indian Community’s surface water treatment plant marks the first surface water treatment plant for the community, located in the Santa Cruz Valley of Southern Arizona.

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Image: Ak-Chin Indian Community’s surface water treatment plant. Photo: courtesy of AK-Chin Indian Community.