Stormwater Treatment System

iStorm-C Case Study

Toyota’s new California vehicle processing center utilizes a unique water treatment installation in order to meet city compliance regulations. Florite International, Inc. provides critical monitoring instrumentation which graphically displays contaminants (as indicated by relative electrical conductivity) that have been removed as part of the proprietary filtration process.

Client: iGen Technologies of California
Project: Toyota VDC
Location: Long Beach, CA

The Project

Toyota Logistical Systems is building a new Vehicle Processing and Distribution Center (VDC) at Port of Long Beach, CA, designed for importing cars from overseas. The large 140+ acre site managed by Oltmans Construction Co. of Whittier, CA, will include a LEED Gold Certified 155,000 sq. ft. post-production building, 5200 sq. ft. carwash, and a 3,500 sq. ft. fueling island. When complete, this project will create a more efficient workflow, reduce vehicular movement and emissions, increase site safety, and update the seismic security of the facility.

Excavations are a significant part of this project. The resulting groundwater, as well as any stormwater that falls on-site, must either be collected and treated onsite or disposed of offsite due to the presence of contaminants. Strict adherence to city compliance ordinances regarding water usage made it necessary for the contractor to find an onsite solution. The compact yet powerful iStorm-C Water Treatment System allows for the entire filtration process to be done in place within a very economical footprint.

On-site Water Treatment

Groundwater and/or stormwater collected at the Toyota site is pumped to large Baker tanks and then transferred to iStorm-C’s 4,000-gallon onboard equalization tank. The system can be operated in both manual and automated modes. When filling the equalization tank in automated mode, a simple float switch starts the high-pressure Grundfos water pump, propelling the contaminated water through a series of filters (including a 30 cu. ft. Evoqua proprietary SCU media tank).

The removal of contaminants such as oil and grease suspended solids, and metals like copper, zinc, aluminum, and iron results in an overall reduction to non-detectable levels and easily meets all applicable stormwater discharge requirements. The iStorm-C treatment system is capable of treating water at a rate of 100 GPM.

This is the first production unit and it has been in operation since April 2020. Maintenance is
minimal and consists of changing out the various filters in the system. One iStorm-C Filtration
unit can be manufactured in as little as 2-3 weeks and can be customized for each job site.

Monitoring and Display Panel

The Florite 990X Process Controller, part of the iStorm-C display panel, monitors two Electrical Conductivity sensors: one for the influent raw, untreated water, and the other showing effluent conductivity after filtration is complete. The two Florite channels labeled EC 1 and EC 2 measure a voltage level from the conductivity sensors. These sensors monitor differences between the influent and effluent streams as an indicator of the relative health of the iStorm system. Software translates the voltage to an EC count that can be read by water quality engineers.

The Florite Controller also monitors single Proteus digital pulse Flow Meter for recording flow information. The visual display on the Florite 990X allows the operator to see all three channels of realtime information at once: at-a-glance status indicating when filters need to be changed and the total volume of water in liters that have been treated.

The Microsoft tablet graphically displays data extracted via the 990X: total gallons processed for each event, cumulative total gallons processed, the instantaneous rate of flow in liters/min, and two Conductivity sensor readings. New events are created by pressing the “reset event” button, which will reset the Event Flow total to “0” gallons. The total Accumulated Flow is stored on the tablet and is always available to view.

Results

After processing through the iStorm-C Water Treatment system, the treated water now meets area regulatory discharge requirements and can be utilized for dust suppression as part of ongoing construction, or can be safely discharged to an onsite storm drain.