Specific Industry Flow Rates in the U.S.

McIlvaine has been able to integrate individual plant data covering tens of thousands of companies and information on each process within those companies. This data has been extracted from report submittals to EPA. Data has been compiled around two main flow rates which are intake and discharge, and cooling. We have compiled data on discharge rates. Intake rates are generally equal less any evaporation. The cooling rates have been derived from the CFM of industrial boilers. Figures IO-8, IO-9 and IO-10 show this data segmented by the specific industries which are identified by the SIC Codes explained earlier.

Figure IO-8 shows a listing by SIC Code for each industry, both discharge (and therefore intake) and cooling water are quantified. Line item 1 presents SIC Code 921, Fish Hatcheries. As shown, there are 28 facilities that are discharging wastewater at a rate of at least one million gallons per day. This does not include all the fish hatcheries, but only the largest fish hatcheries. It therefore understates the total industry size. The plant size for these facilities ranges from 1-10 mgd. The average size is 8 and as a group these plants discharge  more than 224 million gallons per day. Again, this is only the million gallon dischargers and does not include the smaller plants. There is no recirculating cooling water.

The second line item is Iron Mining, SIC Code 1011. From the fact that 1.3 million CFM is used in conjunction with industrial boilers, we have come to the conclusion that there is 242 mgd in recirculating cooling water systems for the 14 facilities for the entire industry. Note that only seven facilities are listed as discharging more than a million gallons a day. However, for cooling, since we have used a different database, the numbers reflect the entire industry rather than just the large facilities. So the discharge numbers in total mgd refer only to the large discharges whereas the cooling mgd refers to the entire industry.

In Figure IO-9, the information is repeated, but the order is changed to represent the ranking by millions of gallons a day being discharged. Note that the electric services is the largest with 277 billion gallons per day. This is followed by sewage systems with 20 billion gallons per day.

Figure IO-10 ranks facilities based on the amount of cooling water being recycled. Electric services is still the largest with 360 billion gallons per day. Paper mills are second with 10.8 billion gallons per day, followed by crude petroleum and natural gas at 8.4 billion gallons per day.

The industry and application segmentation in the forecasts appearing in this report is based on the SIC code classification.  The forecasts have been grouped as follows:

This flow data is important in several ways. First each segment of the forecast is precisely defined in terms of the applications. Fish hatcheries are in miscellaneous rather than water supply. SIC l094, uranium ores is included in mining. Where applications are not clearly identified by the SIC Code they can be assumed to be miscellaneous. Major pump applications such as fire pumps, and pumps for high pressure water cleaning are in this category. Therefore, thousands of individual applications are precisely segmented. The major contribution of this data is to establish the relationship between fluid flows and RO/UF/MF potential.

In general, the quantity of water brought into the plant equals the quantity of water discharged. The major exception is drinking water plants. Drinking water plants and municipal wastewater treatment plants can be viewed as one operation. The water comes into the treatment plant and then after use flows out through the wastewater treatment plant. For most other applications it is safe to assume that the discharge flows listed are the same as the intake flows. So the 224 MGD for SIC 921 Fish Hatcheries is not only the discharge flow but also the intake.

With other fluid flows the intake is most likely to be released as part of the product or to be converted into a solid and if there is any discharge it is likely to be the water component. Sulfuric acid ranks number one in terms of quantity of chemical utilized.