Conventional and Unconventional Approaches to Water Service Provision #2761

Project Summary: Compares conventional water treatment and distribution to unconventional approaches for providing quality water to customers, including point-of-use (POU) and point-of-entry (POE) devices, small neighborhood systems, and bottled water. Includes capital costs, operational and maintenance costs, ability to meet health standards, and aesthetic quality goals. Also considers risks associated with the options, long-term reliability of the options, and practical engineering considerations. Assumes plausible stringent future regulatory scenarios and consumer demands for high quality and aesthetically pleasing drinking water. See also project #2924. Published in 2004.

Project Details Participants Supporting Resources Order Report Project Profile / Order Report

Contractor: Stratus Consulting Inc.

Funded: 2001              Completion Year: 2004              Funding Amount: $670,305.00

Goal Area: Management and Customer Relations

Related Topics: Customer Care,  Management,  Point of Use,  Treatment Technologies

Benefits to the Drinking Water Supply Community:
If it can be shown that unconventional approaches are cost effective under likely future scenarios, there may be merit in adopting them today to avoid the high cost of making incremental changes to conventional treatment facilities. This approach would allow the industry to avoid repeatedly changing or replacing technology to address specific consumer issues or more stringent regulations, especially if those changes cannot address all of the likely new regulations adequately or the changes are extraordinarily expensive. There is the potential that considerable cost savings could be realized by switching sooner to a new technological paradigm that would meet all future needs, thereby avoiding the cost of making many intermediate, but eventually inadequate, changes to current conventional treatment and distribution processes.