TCMA Chloride Management Plan - Prioritizing and Implementing Restoration and Protection - Water treatment facilities (water supply)

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This sector draws water from groundwater or surface water sources and tests and treats it before distributing it to residents. Municipalities that soften the water before it is distributed to households or municipalities that are considering this, care should be taken to minimize salt use and salt waste. Assess the need for soft water in the area and look for non-salt approaches such as lime softening. Consider the mass balance of how much salt is used by individual water softeners versus centralized water softening. However, users may be unaware the water from the municipality is softened or may be accustomed to having a residential softener leading to double softening. Municipalities can also evaluate how high saline water is disposed of in the cleaning and flushing process.

Example: Years 1-2

• Assess hardness level of water and need for softening.
• Determine if non-chloride source softening is a viable option.
• Survey homeowners on the use of residential water softening.
• Educate customers on water conservation and the benefits related to chloride reduction.

Example: Years 3-5

• Encourage residents to install high efficiency water softeners.
• Encourage home by-pass of soft water for irrigation and drinking water. Create cost share program to encourage plumbing changes needed to accommodate this.
• For those with RO systems, explore ways to capture RO waste water which is saline and route to water softener.

Example: Years 6-10

• Reuse salt from cleaning municipal water softening equipment.
• Use non-chloride techniques for softening source water.