Like many places in the world, El Salvador is a country concerned that without alternate sources of fresh water, they would soon be facing critical shortages of drinking water.
A solution seemed to be at hand. Lake Ilopango was a natural, deep-water lake (over 200 meters) of sufficient volume for consideration as an alternative drinking water source.
As attractive as this seemed, the lake's waters were deadly for long term human consumption, due to the high levels of arsenic in the water. Lake Ilopango's waters contained approximately 700 mg/l of arsenic, which is considerably higher than the 10 mg/l limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for arsenic.
Some method had to be devised to remove the toxic arsenic if Lake Ilopango was to be used as a viable source for drinking water.
The goal was to remove arsenic from the water and provide up to 2 MGD (million gallons/day) of drinking water. Laboratory scale tests were performed looking at various alternative treatments.
Technology available from Water Energy was selected to treat the water. First, the lake water was ozonated, then filtered to remove a portion of the lesser soluble arsenic. Following filtration of a portion of arsenic, the remainder was treated with ozone and subsequently removed via an Oxidation-Reduction media, yielding total arsenic reductions of between 96% and 98%.
Regrettably, funding for the continuation of this project was suspended due to internal conflict of the El Salvador government.
