ATTAC/UAA Applied Research

As part of the ATTAC team, the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) School of Engineering conducts applied research and technology demonstrations to help Alaska's small systems deliver safe and affordable drinking water. UAA's objectives are to promote the use of new technologies by conducting field and laboratory testing of alternative innovative treatment technologies.

Alaska's small drinking water systems face a number of technical challenges as new rules are promulgated and existing rules are implemented. UAA has focused on three critical issues facing these systems that can benefit from the application of new technologies. These include:

1. Disinfection Byproduct Formation: Many of the surface and groundwater sources used by Alaska's small communities contain high concentrations of natural organic material. These highly colored waters, locally referred to as "tundra tea", often cause the formation of disinfectant byproducts during treatment. EPA's Stage 1 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Final Rule (D/DBPR) and the potentially more stringent Stage 2 D/DBPR will make it difficult for many of Alaska's smallest communities to comply using their existing treatment technologies. In addition, because of the remote and harsh conditions typical of most rural communities, there is a need for technologies that can be housed in small buildings, are easy to operate and require limited chemical addition.


2. Arsenic: Many of Alaska's communities using groundwater sources draw their water from formations containing naturally occurring arsenic. The new arsenic rule, which reduced the drinking water MCL from 50 to 10 ppb, will put approximately 75 systems out of compliance. Most of these systems are small, well and pressure tank type community water systems.


3. Desalination: Many of the Alaska's small communities utilize brackish groundwater as their drinking water source or (in coastal areas) rely on freshwater lakes and rivers which susceptible to seawater intrusion. Providing safe drinking water is particularly difficult for these small communities because most are remote (many only accessible by air), have fundamentally subsistence based economy, and rely on diesel generated power which can cost as much as $0.50 kW-hr. One emerging technology with potential for application in rural Alaska and other small communities is capacitive desalinization. This technology utilizes electrodes made from activated carbon material. When these electrodes are layered into a capacitive cell and power is applied, the individual electrodes become charged. Dissolved ions in the water are attracted to the electrode of opposite polarity. Dissolved ions accumulate in the electrode pore structure and are discharged as a concentrated waste stream by reversing the polarity of the electrodes. Capacitive desalination systems are solid state devices with few moving parts and no requirement for chemical addition. These characteristics suggest that this technology may be well suited for application in small communities. (Work Ongoing)