Safe water emergencies from a natural disaster such as a flood, hurricane, earthquake, tornado, and a terrorist hazard affect thousands of people every year. Following an emergency, drinking water may be compromised or not available for an extended period. It is reasonable to assume that an emergency is also going to disrupt transportation logistics making the transport of emergency water supplies difficult. Providing ruggedized, all weather portable ozone water treatment plants that run unattended from an independent power source from any available source water is a best choice in an emergency.

For salty source waters, including reverse osmosis (“RO”) unit would be required. RO can be used to remove chemicals but requires an additional water treatment step for disinfection. In practice, reverse osmosis membranes allow a fraction of living bacteria to pass through minor imperfections, or bypass the membranes entirely through tiny leaks in the surrounding seals.

A water ozone treatment followed by ultra violet ozone destruct and a GAC filter is an optimal choice. The deployment of a containerized treatment system can to treat up to 180 gallons per minute (gpm) or about 260,000 gallons per day is the equivalent of about 5 tanker trucks. Deployment would require locating and leveling the plant and putting the inlet into a local water source, adding fuel for a power generator and turning the system “ON”. The total time to deploy should be approximately 8 hours.