Could you briefly present your profession and activity, and the REUT project developed in Nice?

“My name is Pierre Geeraert. I'm a project manager at Nomado, a 25-strong SME specializing in containerized water treatment units. We work in drinking water production, urban wastewater treatment, industrial effluent treatment and, increasingly, water recycling.

We are based in Marseille, and we are developing projects all over the world.

For the city of Nice, we have set up a water recycling system at the wastewater treatment plant, using a 40-foot container that produces an average of 12 m3/hr.

The aim of the project is to recover treated wastewater before it is discharged into the sea, and insert it into a treatment cycle so that it can be reused for other purposes. The city of Nice wanted a pilot plant to test the processes, as they are part of a large-scale water recycling project.

So the city wanted to set up a pilot plant to test water treatment technologies at the end of a wastewater treatment plant, because in France we don't yet have much experience of these processes and types of treatment, and in particular of the European standards that have recently been put in place.”

What was your initial need for such storage?

“The plant treats wastewater continuously, but demand for treated water, particularly at night, is currently very low. Buffer storage was therefore necessary to manage production peaks in relation to consumption.

A 100 m3 tank was installed to store the water after treatment. This buffer storage means that water is available 24 hours a day.

This water will be used for a number of purposes: firstly, watering green spaces, and secondly, road cleaning. For road cleaning, tanker trucks will connect to the container, and there's a ballet of tanker trucks in the morning, and one in the afternoon. So we needed a buffer storage because we don't produce directly for the trucks, we produce for the tanker and then distribute to the watering networks or to the tanker trucks.

We installed the tank in June, and put it into service in September, because we had to obtain the necessary authorizations from the prefecture to be able to store this water in a volume of 100 m3 “.

Why did you choose a flexible tank for such a project?

“We chose this solution for cost reasons. It's an inexpensive form of storage, on a per-cubic-meter basis. We didn't particularly have a problem with floor space. On the wastewater treatment plant, we knew there was going to be a lot of work, so it had to be a storage facility that could be moved.

Right now, Nice is the biggest water treatment project ever undertaken in France. They're in the process of rebuilding the entire plant, with biogas recovery, recycling of treated water, etc.

We chose Labaronne-Citaf for this project because it's the best-known brand in France, and also very well-known among water treatment companies. We set up this water treatment system for the Régie Eau d'azur, and Suez Service France uses this plant, so we wanted to use a brand known to both entities.”

After a few months of use, what do you think of the use of your tank, and of the operation of the REUT project in general?

 

“We had good commercial support, which remained at the “commercial” stage, since it was simple water buffer storage. And as far as installation was concerned, it was a basic tank, so rather simple to install ourselves, using the tools and instructions supplied by Labaronne.

The only problem we encountered was that the tank was left for a year without water in a marine environment. As a result, the brass valves got a bit stuck, but unfortunately there's nothing anyone can do about that. The only small disadvantage, otherwise, is perhaps the floor space.

Overall, we're very satisfied with the tank in its first few months of use. Since it went into service in September, the tank has given us great satisfaction, and it's a solution that adapts perfectly to treated water storage like the Nice project, provided there's enough floor space!