The old lumber mill site was to be converted to a co-generation plant providing 23 mega watts of power to local communities in the high Sierra Mountains. Using up to 80,000 gallons of water a day to cool the power plant, the client found they had a huge challenge ensuring compliance with the State Control Board’s standards for discharged water.

Studies found that the wastewater contained elevated total dissolved solids. Building a treatment plant to reduce TDS levels to those of the groundwater using reverse-osmosis technology would have added more than $1 million to the project’s cost. The costs were prohibitive and the client contracted Carlton Engineering to assess the problem.

Carlton recommended the existing three acre pond be increased to a seventy acre pond for proper spray irrigation. Interfacing with Dr. Roland Meyers, an agricultural expert with UC Davis, Carlton developed a plan to utilize the waste water to provide essential nutrients to neighboring crops.