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WaterStax at Royal Adelaide Golf Club
Hindmarsh Plumbing Services was commissioned to install a WaterStax Treatment System at Royal Adelaide Golf Club. The system “treats” the water from the wash pad, where golf course maintenance equipment is cleaned, to a level where it can be used for irrigation, filling dams or be discharged to the sewer. The club pipes the water to on course surface irrigation.
In addition to the WaterStax installation, Hindmarsh Plumbing Services also installed high pressure hose reels for the equipment washing. Contractors installed the concrete pad which incorporates drainage trenches running down to a sump from which the water is pumped to the WaterStax. The trenches allow solids to settle out before they reach the sump, reducing maintenance problems with the submersible pump.
 WaterStax uses bioremediation technology to remove oil, grease, hydrocarbons, pesticides, insecticides, grass clippings, all the typical wastes generated in a wash pad area.
There are two types of systems: Discharge or Recycle.
• The Discharge System, “treats” the water to a level where it can be used for irrigation, filling dams or be discharged to the sewer.
• The Recycle System incorporates an additional stage of cleaning where the treated water can be recycled as wash water through to the washing equipment. This extra stage is referred to as a “closed loop” system.
A discharge system was installed because the recycle version of WaterStax was not available when the club installed its system. Re-using or recycling wash water from the WaterStax
• Eliminates the need to store any contaminants
• No expensive chemicals or degreasers required
• No emulsified oily filters to clean
• No requirement to pay someone to collect oil waste produced from the wash pad
• No foul smelling dead water odours to contend with
• No weekly servicing requirements for the WaterStax unit
The WaterStax combines grass and solids separation with bioremediation. Grass clippings and other solid matter are
separated from the waste water via a uniquely designed grass screen and a settling tank. The grass cart is always located on the wash pad. This is because the bottom of the cart is a fine membrane. This allows the water to drain off, back through the treatment system leaving the grass clippings to dry for collection and added to the compost.
The hydrocarbon based contaminants that remain in the water such as grease, oil, herbicides, insecticides and pesticides are bioremediated with the BioStax microbe solution resulting in harmless carbon dioxide and water. This process generally happens overnight when the wash pad is not in use, an automated process managed by the control centre.
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The WaterStax is a modular system that provides flexibility to suit the specific wash pad requirements of the customer. The WaterStax can effectively handle 37-189 litres per minute, it is factory set at 70 litres per minute.
The WaterStax does not contain any filters that need to be replaced. Traditional filter based systems require regular maintenance of the filters including washing, back flushing and changing. The filters are not only expensive to replace, but they may also be hazardous waste after they have collected and concentrated the contaminants. Improper disposal of filters creates significant liabilities.
Unlike traditional filters that simply capture and concentrate the waste, the microbes literally “eat” the hydrocarbon base contaminants such as grease, oil, herbicides, insecticides and pesticides. The microbes convert the hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide and water. The microbe solution, is replenished automatically each day. An automatic peristaltic dosing pump adds a small amount of the microbes each night to ensure that the population remains strong. BioStax microbes don’t contain any artifi cial degreasers or surfactants that simply emulsify grease and oil.
The process of converting the hydrocarbon contaminants into carbon dioxide and water is beta-oxidation, and more specifically catabolism. Since beta-oxidation is enhanced in aerobic conditions, the WaterStax is aerated at night when washing doesn’t occur.
Interesting fact: Bioremediation is widely used in cleaning oil spills, and first gained fame when it was used to help clean up the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez in Alaska.
The WaterStax system itself requires very little maintenance. Auto purge valves timers are set in the control panel to automatically clean out solids collected in the tanks.
In the event of a power failure, no waste water will enter the system, and no waste water will leave the system, since the water in the catch basin will not be pumped into the WaterStax. If the pump works but the other electrical systems are not powered, the grass screen will still eliminate grass clippings, and other contaminants will separate out via differential specific gravity as in a traditional oil water separator.
The high density, cross-linked polyethylene tanks are extraresistant to chemical fatigue and ultra-violet exposure.
The project is yet another example of the rapidly developing water conservation and treatment markets supported by new technologies that forward thinking plumbing companies are embracing.
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