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Maple Hill Sugarhouse
05-05-2006, 07:37 AM
I'm inquiring what or how you go about correctly discharging your RO's wash water for disposal? After viewing the paperwork that was put out by Proctor Maple on chemical safety in sugaring operations i would like to see if i can get a heads up of what needs to be done with the discharged solutions? I don't want to start washing the membrane on the machine for a few years by letting it run on the ground and come to find out later that your suspose to do it this way? and get fined for something silly?

Does someone really know what should be done to do this correctly???

ennismaple
05-05-2006, 09:15 AM
Ours discharges to a buried subdrain (perforated Big 'O' wrapped in filter sock) that extends about 150 feet into the hayfield downhill of our sugar house.

As the wash water is only permeate and food grade detergent I can't see anything wrong with what we do. We are not discharging a harmful substance to a watercourse and it is not having any adverse effect on the environment. In fact, we are infiltrating the water into the ground which is preferable to evaporation from a water balance perspective.

gearpump
05-05-2006, 06:01 PM
I put in a 200 gallon concrete well tile that has a leaching field of big rocks on the outlet side. I figured that this way if I lost anything valuble down the pipe system I could dig up the cover and retrive it! The only problem I had was the moisture from the drain was fogging up and freezing on the door of the RO room. Still have no solution for that one.

Marty

Mike
05-05-2006, 06:48 PM
Can you put a pvc plug in the opening??