The City Council of Bellingham recently voted to award Steller J Construction a contract worth $11.4m to build a new drinking water treatment system for the city.
Ted Carlson, Public Works Director for the city, said that it will start processing the contract and work on the project is planned to begin during October.
Construction will take place over the next year and the system is expected to go online in 2018.
The new facility will be located in Whatcom Falls Park. Debris will be forced to the top of the incoming water by millions of tiny air bubbles. This will enable the maximum amount of material to be taken off the water before it enters the filtration system itself. This process is known as dissolved air flotation and typically gets more debris and organic materials, such as plants and algae, out of the water so less chlorine is needed to treat it.
Bellingham will be the first city in the state of Washington to install this pre-treatment process for drinkable water. It is often used to get other types of debris out of water that will not be used for drinking purposes.
The City and the Public Works Department could consider the use of various printing services to educate residents about the advantages of dissolved air flotation, and the benefits it will provide them.
