Professional BoatBuilder Magazine Features the Vanish 300
Help at the Haulout: Originally published in Professional BoatBuilder Magazine (August / September 2009) by Dan Spurr, Editor-at-Large
Last March, a dozen specialists from the North Carolina Division of Water Quality gathered at Bennett Brothers Yachts in Wilmington, North Carolina, to observe in action a new machine that collects and processes wastewater from pressure-washing boat bottoms. What they witnessed was David Flagler, head of Clean Marine Solutions, demonstrating the prototype Vanish 300 Hybrid Wastewater Treatment System.
Flagler’s mission has been to develop an affordable method of environmental compliance for boatyards and marinas. He says the Vanish 300 Hybrid system fits the bill because of its lower initial cost, lower operating costs, simple operation, and reduced permitting. A top official with the NCDWQ told him, “Your system will not need a wastewater discharge permit because you are not discharging any wastewater.” (Indeed, the NCDWQ has just granted “deemed approved” status to the system and its environmental compliance plan. Marine service facilities that purchase the system will not have to go through the lengthy, expensive full-permitting process.)_ Flagler says his system can reduce 50 gal (189 l) of heavy-metal-laden wastewater generated from pressurewashing boats into a cup of dried flocculant that is easily permitted for disposal at most municipal landfills. He says manual tests by the NCDWQ showed that more than 99.5% of the copper from bottom paint is removed. (Typical drinking water has nine times more copper than is in the Vanish effluent.)
Flagler has not found any published estimates of how many yards in the United States are in compliance with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency discharge standards, as outlined in the federal Clean Water Act. Interviews with marina associations suggest that relatively few yards are in compliance. While some states have made great progress, a NCDWQ report estimates that the average marina exceeds discharge limits by a factor of 69,000.
Here’s Flagler on the Vanish 300 Hybrid: “We call it a hybrid system because the clarified wastewater vanishes through a combination of evaporation and recycling. Recycle systems typically have to purge wastewater that has become too foul to use. The Vanish 300 Hybrid system never needs to discharge odiferous wastewater. Recycle systems will incur additional expenses for compliance and permitting in order to dispose of purged wastewater.”
Recycle systems introduce fresh water to “make up” the wastewater lost to evaporation or overspray. The Vanish 300 Hybrid system also does this, but it introduces fresh water at a much higher rate, which has distinct advantages: no need for odor-reducing ozone or ultraviolet components that add to the initial cost of typical recycle systems, and add as well to operating and maintenance expenses.
Flagler says his 36″ (0.9m) evaporator uses about $12 of electricity per month (160 hours). The system works with or without the evaporator; in some locales it may be most economical to get permitted to discharge the clarified wastewater to a municipal sewer system. This obviates the need for an evaporator.
Flagler points out a bureaucratic absurdity: per the EPA’s discharge standards, it is illegal to spray off your boat’s bottom with municipal water. Why? Because most tap water has more than 400 times the amount of copper allowed by the EPA discharge standards!
The Vanish Water Clarifier utilizes flocculation chemistry similar to that of municipal water plants around the world, Flagler says. In an automated series of operations, precise quantities of caustics and polymers are injected into the wastewater and mixed. The heavy metals flocculate into clusters, which fall to the bottom of a settling tank. The clarified wastewater is pumped through a 5-micron filter and then pumped to a holding tank. Clarified water from the holding tank feeds the evaporative system or is pumped to a pressure washer for recycling.
Flagler is a veteran boatbuilder who developed innovative boatbuilding education programs in North Carolina and Hawaii, and whose major in college was chemistry.
Article can be viewed on-line: http://www.proboat-digital.com/proboat/e20090809/ August / September 2009 issue #120 (starts page 10)