Cost Effectiveness; Capital and O & M Costs

RO units used for the Watts Premier POU projects are the new Watts Premier KP-5 Manifold Systems. These systems are equipped with three pre filters, one 5 micron sediment and two 5 micron carbon blocks. Following the prefilters is the 25 GPD RO membrane, three gallon holding tank and a final 10 inch in-line polishing filter. These systems carry NSF International Certification for the reduction of arsenic, barium, cadmium, copper, cyst, hexavalent chromium, fluoride, lead, perchloratre, radium 226/228, selenium, TDS, trivalent chromium and turbidity. Service connections that had inlet pressure less than 40 psi were equipped with a small RO booster pump. Depending upon water demand, these same units can be easily fitted with a higher capacity membrane and larger capacity holding tank.

The KP-5 RO system is also equipped with a total dissolved solids (TDS) monitoring faucet that reads the levels of TDS in your water and determines if the unit is working properly. TDS is an indicator of the performance of the RO membrane. Initially, an RO system should reduce on average 96% of the incoming TDS. Over time, the membrane will reduce less of this incoming TDS, and eventually will need to be replaced. Watts Premier estimates the life of an RO to be between two and five years, depending upon the quality of the incoming water.

If the metering faucet senses that the TDS level through the RO membrane has been reduced below the set level, the light on the faucet will turn from green to red. The red light does not mean that the system is not removing any of the incoming water contaminants. Rather, the RO system is still removing minimally 80% of the incoming water contaminants; however, it is signaling to the user that it is time to service the unit .

Capital costs including engineering and installation

POU provides unique overall cost savings program as the costs for engineering and building are substantially reduced as the remediation process is built around the installation with in the home. Due to this, there is little to no advance engineering work, and therefore no costs required for the design, plan and implement the POU program.

Initial soft costs will include pre-meetings with the community in order to review and answer any questions regarding the point of use approach. Estimated time, based upon similar meetings with Black Canyon City Water Improvement District and Michael's Ranch, would be approximately two to four hours over one to two town meetings to review and answer any questions.

Following the initial meeting, there would also be an additional one to two hours spent by the water system in order to schedule the installation of the reverse osmosis devices.

Table A has summarized the capitol costs for a POU program, and compared the initial capitol costs with capitol costs for a centralized water system. The calculations for the centralized water capitol costs were derived from EPA and other state estimations on the costs for a centralized water system in 2004.

For a point of reference, using the Watts Premier KP-5 five stage reverse osmosis, the capitol costs, including the RO unit and installation, for 100 service connections would come in under $30,000.

Table A

O & M costs

Operation and maintenance costs revolve around the local market for service. Based upon a survey conducted by Watts Premier, this would equate to an average of $40.00 per service call for these O&M costs. This cost may vary based upon your community location. This would include the plumber or service technician, who may be bonded to the water system, inspecting the systems annually.

During the annual service call, periodic water testing may be required on a subset of the community. ADEQ has determined that the use of arsenic test kits will play an important part in the states POU program for arsenic. These tests run approximately $3.00 per arsenic test based upon the test kits that Watts Premier uses in our arsenic POU programs. Periodically wet lab analysis will be required. Make sure when you are working with a lab to talk to them about volume discounts for analysis.

A sampling of local labs can be found at the following web sites:

http://www.epa.gov/ttn/nelac/accreditlabs.html

http://www.dhs.ca.gov/ps/ls/elap/html/NELAPinfo.htm

http://www.dhs.ca.gov/ps/ls/ELAP/html/lablist.htm

RO replacement elements and membrane

Watts Premier five stage reverse osmosis systems are equipped with three pre filters, an RO membrane, and a final 10 inch in-line polishing filter. Recommended servicing of the unit includes annual change out of the three pre filters and the final polishing filter.
Reverse osmosis membranes are expected to last two to five years. All reverse osmosis systems will be installed with a TDS monitoring faucet, which will be set during the installation of the RO to a specific desired percent reduction of TDS.

Tables B, and C provide cost comparisons of the KP-5 POU RO and Centralized Treatment over varying number of service connections. Several cost estimates for point of use applications have been created, most indicating significantly higher estimates for the POU costs. This is due to the high cost of the other POU RO systems and replacement parts. Watts Premier is capable of providing NSF Certified, POU RO's at a fraction of the cost that other POU RO's have estimated. Because of this system cost savings, Watts Premier estimated the cross point in POU RO and Centralized treatment will come in between 300 and 350 service connections.

Table B

Table C

For further information, or a cost estimate for your water system, please complete the request for information form and one of our technical specialists will contact you directly.