Boynton Beach Magnetic Ion Exchange Resin Plant and East Water Treatment Plant Improvements

Boynton Beach Utilities serves the City of Boynton Beach, its neighboring municipalities, and some areas of unincorporated Palm Beach County. By 2035, this water utility is anticipated to serve upwards of 140,000 customers via their two water treatment plants (WTPs), the 24-million-gallon-per-day (mgd) East WTP (EWTP) and the 12-mgd West WTP (WWTP). These plants have historically utilized coastal surficial aquifer as their raw water source, the larger EWTP drawing from the eastern wellfields while the WWTP drawing from the western wellfields.

However, with such growth expected along the waterfront, the coastal aquifers could not provide the required water supply without risking saltwater intrusion, especially in the eastern wellfields. To minimize reliance on this valuable water source and to develop a robust, long-term potable water supply that can keep up with their continued development, the City decided in 2017 to implement innovative water system upgrades.

More specifically, the City formulated a plan to increase their use of raw water from the western wellfields by installing a 6-mile-long pipeline from this source to the EWTP, which had excess treatment capacity available. And, given that the water from the western wellfields is harder and contains higher levels of dissolved organic compounds than what is found in the eastern wellfields, the City also elected to expand the EWTP with a magnetic ion exchange (MIEX) process.

With Carollo’s design-build group serving as their integral subconsultant, the design-build firm CDM Constructors Inc. was selected as the prime contractor, engineer, and design-builder to construct what would become the largest and most advanced MIEX treatment plant in the world. The project team not only evaluated treatment technologies that guided the City’s final selection but also designed and constructed the new 16-mgd MIEX system that pre-treats raw water from multiple wells prior to the plant’s existing lime-softening process.

Wherever possible, the team prioritized the use of existing assets and infrastructure, thus saving the City significant capital and energy costs over the life of the project. Effective and accelerated permitting, equipment procurement, and instrumentation and control programming also allowed this award-winning endeavor to remain on schedule despite working around six individual plant tie-ins and shutdowns that did not interfere with plant operations.