LOCAL WATER

TREATMENT
PLANTS

MUNTINLUPA,
PHILIPPINES
 Residents of Muntinlupa City now enjoy potable
water from Laguna Lake, the country’s biggest
fresh-water body, thanks to a treatment plant
being built by Maynilad Water Services Inc.

 The facility uses dissolved-air flotation,

microfiltration, reverse osmosis and chlorination
to produce water from the lake that Pall Corp.
claims exceeds the Philippine National
Drinking Water Standards. Despite these
processes, water from the plant has a “moldy”
odor and taste, which consumers can remove
with the use of a carbon filter.
 PROCESSES INVOLVED
 1. Lake intake
An intake structure 400 meters from the
shoreline draws water from Laguna Lake.
The water passes through twin (2-m x 1.75-m)
ducts.
 2. Forebay
Water is fed into the forebay by gravity. The
water is continually replenished in the
impounding area depending on demand.
 3.
Aerator
A “twister” machine aerates the raw water in
the forebay.

 4.Vertical pumps
Three vertical turbines (132 kW, 880 rpm)
pump water from the forebay into dissolved-
air-flotation (DAF) tanks.

 5.Coagulant
Aluminum chlorohydrate, a coagulant, from
these tanks is added before raw water goes
into the DAF tanks.
 6.Mixers
In the first stage of the DAF process, mixers in
four tanks slowly blend the water with the
coagulant, which binds to blue-green algae, silt,
dust, and metals like iron and manganese to
form flocs (loosely clumped masses of fine
particles).

 7.Air concentrator
In the second stage of DAF, air from this tank is
injected into two chambers holding the
mixture of water and coagulant, producing
small bubbles that make the flocs float.
 8.Skimmers
Skimmers remove from the surface the flocs
that form into sludge. Scrapers remove solids
that settle on the bottom. The sludge goes into
a trough and into a sludge tank (lagoon at this
time) where it is decanted to remove water.
Solids are left for hauling.

 9.Feed pumps
Six turbines (215 horsepower at 1,790 rpm)
pump water into strainers and into
microfiltration and reverse-osmosis trains, and
finally into the reservoir.
 10.Strainers
Five stainless strainers remove remaining solids
(up to 300 microns) from the water, clear by now,
at a maximum flow of 1,200 cubic meters per hour.
A micron is a thousandth of a millimeter.

 11.Microfiltration system
Polyvinylidene-fluoride filters screen out
particles up to 0.1 micron, removing most
viruses and bacteria. This process uses 14 racks
with 68 modules each.
 12.Reverse-osmosis (RO) system 
Salt is removed from the water using six
identical RO trains (5.6 mld of permeate flow
per train) when salinity in the lake reaches 500
parts per million. Last June and July, for
instance, salt water from Manila Bay intruded
into the lake through the Pasig River. The brine
resulting from reverse osmosis is expelled into
the lake.

 13.Permeate tank. A 30 cubic-meter tank

collects water from RO trains.
 14. Chlorine 
Chlorine is added to kill pathogens. 
While the chlorine equipment has yet to be installed,
granules of calcium hypochlorite (which have a 70-percent
chlorine content) are used.

 15. Reservoir 
The reservoir can store 14 million liters a day (mld). It has
two chambers—Chamber 1 can hold 6.6 mld and Chamber 2,
7.4 mld.

 16. Booster pumps 

Three 200-kW booster pumps for Ayala Alabang and three
480-kW booster pumps for other communities distribute
potable water to May-nilad customers, producing 88 psi
(pounds per square inch) of pressure that allows water to be
sent to multi-story houses and tall buildings. The pressure
drops to 20 psi when water reaches end users.