According to the National Drought Summary provided by The National Drought Mitigation Center, “…the long-term drought in California since the 2011-12 wet season has accumulated huge deficits and brought severe hydrological, agricultural, and ecological impacts.” Despite meager improvements in the last week, California has a long way to go get back to normal. The drought center puts the last 24-months period (Feb12-Jan’14) in historical perspective stating that it is the driest such period on record.
Many industries rely on an ample water supply for day-to-day operations, and the recent drought has demanded that water use be made more efficient.
An article published in the Los Angeles Times on February 21, 2014 discussed the impact of the drought on Central Valley growers saying that, “Most of them will get no water from the big federal irrigation project that supplies 3 million acres of California farm land.
Citing the state’s severe drought, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced an initial water allocation of zero for most contractors of the sprawling Central Valley Project.”
Filtration is one stage of water treatment that ought to be scrutinized. For example, there are still a great many industries and treatment sequences that incorporate sand filters for suspended particle removal, particularly in the agricultural sector.
The reality is that Forsta self-cleaning filters have remarkably lower flush volumes than sand filter models. To analyze the water efficiency of a sand filter versus a Forsta self-cleaning filter, one can easily compare performance parameters using the common application of side stream filtration for cooling tower water. Take a sample side stream cooling tower application of 250 gpm. For this application, the average recommended 54 inch sand filter requires approximately 1000 gallons to backwash. For this same application a Forsta Filters D-180 uses only 50-75 gallons, or less than 1% of total backwash volume.
In the current climate, self-cleaning filters are the clear choice for water savings.