Renewable Energy

For the first five years of the wetland start-up, a 1.4 kilowatt (kW) PV panel provided solar power for a centrifugal pump to recirculate (at 5 gallons per minute) the contaminated water through the wetlands cells until the treated water reached the discharge cleanup standards. Now that the wetlands are removing the nitrate to well below the drinking water standard for nitrate (24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year), this PV system is no longer needed. However, a mini-solar PV panel is used on the flow meter to measure the volume of water moving through the wetlands system and for power in the small building at the wetland.

In the Southern Area of the Apache Superfund site, a windmill is being used to pump water to de-water the perched system underlying the former evaporation ponds that now are capped.