Published May 2001

Chemical-free process
clears up runoff water

By John Wolcott
Herald Business Journal Editor

Problems with surface-water runoff can threaten construction projects in the Puget Sound area, but a Monroe company is demonstrating that its new technology can eliminate shutdowns by turning muddy water into clear water.

"Winter projects are running into problems because of new Department of Ecology restrictions on surface-water turbidity, restrictions needed to protect salmon," said chemist Jim Mothersbaugh, President of Water Tectonics. "But when our (treated) water leaves a site, it meets or exceeds DOE's turbidity requirements, so projects can continue operating."

Mothersbaugh and Robert Schwindt, Vice President of Operations, have created a simple process that can treat large volumes of water, meet DOE standards and still be easy to operate.

"Until recently, there were no alternatives to the chemical treatment that DOE accepted," Mothersbaugh said. "DOE has given us great support in the development of our electrocoagulation process."

"People don't know yet that there are alternatives out there," Schwindt said. "We want to get (the) word out that there is a feasible solution to a tough problem that affects residential and commercial contractors throughout Snohomish County and the Northwest."

Commercial construction sites are a major target for marketing the new process, but Schwindt said the company particularly wants to reach residential developers because housing often is sited in rural areas where runoff water affects salmon-bearing streams.

Although Water Tectonics' process is new, the "electrocoagulation" technology that is the core of the cleansing process was known in the early 1900s, Mothersbaugh said. He and Schwindt have just developed a modern application that works simply and effectively.

Basically, the success of the process depends on the fact that floating particles in surface runoff water are charged, which keeps them separated from each other and suspended in water almost indefinitely because they are very fine and have extremely light weight.

Water Tectonics' process consists of passing runoff water through electrical cells that apply a positive and negative charge to the water, which makes the particles cling together, gather weight and settle to the bottom of catch basins.

"The principles of electrocoagulation — EC as we call it — are well known," Mothersbaugh said. "What we accomplished was to establish an effective system that has a reliable power supply that can run for extended periods of time."

He and Schwindt think they have a marketable process that will win big with contractors, solving runoff-water problems without chemical applications.

"With chemicals, there's always the danger of over-treatment. With this process, we could treat water for 100 years with no difference in the water characteristics," Mothersbaugh said.

First attempts to prove their process weren't as successful. But, over the past two years, a series of pilot projects, site tests and adjustments have been very successful. The DOE now accepts the process as an alternative to chemical applications on the Ecology Department's short list.

Water Tectonics is using its application on its first large-scale project, Seco Development Co.'s building of 500 apartment units, a hotel restaurant and 750,000 square feet of office space at the south end of Lake Washington. The 17-acre site was previously the site of a steam power plant operated by Puget Sound Energy, which has now closed the plant and sold the site.

Runoff water is captured in a settling pond, then run through the Water Tectonics process before it is released into Lake Washington, which has an NTU turbidity rating of 1. DOE standards require water dumped into the lake to have a turbidity rating of no more than 5 NTUs higher than the receiving water.

Water Tectonics has been discharging treated water at levels well within that limit, Mothersbaugh said.

"Water Tectonics takes samples regularly, daily, of the site water and the receiving water," Schwindt said. "We believe that our (treated) water isn't adversely affecting the environment. And we can provide the process at an affordable price."

"Schwindt Enterprises has worked with us before as an earthworks subcontractor, and Robert alerted us to this new capability," said Seco's Development Manager, Rex Allen. "It's working really well. We were interested because the best management practices we used before weren't going to meet the new DOE requirements for construction-site water quality."

Ron Devitt, with the Northwest regional office of the DOE in Bellevue, said the Water Tectonics process has advantages over chemical treatment because it works with less danger of harming the environment.

"Control by chemicals is fine if everyone is doing it properly, but when you start adding chemicals to the water, you have to monitor that process to make sure everything is done responsibly. Water Tectonics' process is doing the same thing without chemicals, which simplifies it bureaucratically and practically," Devitt said. "From our point of view, turbidity and sediment is a big deal. In a normal wet year, ensuring water quality is a big problem for contractors. It's easy to get stuck in the middle of a project (with weather changes). This (Water Tectonics) process is like an insurance policy. It's there if you need it."

Because phosphorus and bacteria in the water also drop out with the particles treated by Water Tectonics' electrocoagulation process, the company's application meets DOE standards for phosphorous reduction and has real potential to address bacterial problems.

"Another advantage of EC is that a chemical treatment for site water runoff has to be approved as part of a contractor's SEPA review," Schwindt said, "whereas our process can be brought to a site with local site inspector approval."

The company's process ran on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, where Sellen Construction Co., the general contractor, recently completed the site development phase of the St. Andrews project. Also, an earlier small-site project tested in Bellevue impressed Guy Oliver, the city of Redmond's lead construction inspector.

"We've been working with DOE since 1994 trying to get some technology to clean surface water. Then, Water Tectonics came to me and we began tests on several Redmond projects and then the one in Bellevue," Oliver said. "We were quite pleased with what we saw. Of all the treatment processes out there, I believe their process to be the safest. We're very much in favor of it, and we're working with them to get it turned loose on the construction industry."

Just how important is the Water Tectonics process?

Oliver said he believes "if you want to protect (water resources), you need this technology or you're going to have to shut (construction) down nine months of the year. We can't afford not to have this technology."

"The process focuses on settling out soil particles that are less than 1 micron in size. That's the particulate that is damaging to salmon and trout gills (particularly in the early stages of their development)," Mothersbaugh said. "The submicron particles will never settle. Larger particles created by our process will settle out at 50 to 75 microns."

Filters alone can't handle the problem because of the submicron size of the particles, Mothersbaugh said. Even if filters could stop the particles, he said, they quickly would clog and be useless.

Water Tectonics' system has the ability to process up to 200,000 gallons a day.

Water Tectonics rents or leases its system, which can be another economic advantage for clients.

"Now that we're a proven operation, we're trying to get the word out that there is a reliable, nonchemical process for treating surface water problems," Schwindt said. "This is a market we expect to excel in in Snohomish County and the Puget Sound area."

But the potential market stretches far beyond the local area and beyond commercial and residential construction sites. The Department of Transportation and other public agencies have the same surface-water turbidity problems when they build highways and public projects, Mothersbaugh said.

For more information, contact Water Tectonics at 17334 Beaton Road SE, Suite 200, Monroe, WA 98272, call 360-794-1071 or 206-947-5922 (mobile) or send e-mail to Jim Mothersbaugh at jianm@aol.com.

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