The City of Red Deer (population 80,000) is a vibrant community located halfway between Calgary and Edmonton.

With a growing population and increased demand, an existing plant near its capacity and facing new Alberta Environment regulations, the City of Red Deer were planning a costly plant expansion. An additional clarifier and UV disinfection would be installed in an extension to the existing building. Another option was desperately needed.

The Actiflo^® process was tested and selected for its small footprint and its outstanding performance at removing organic carbon. Actiflo^® was the only process that allowed a complete retrofit inside one of two existing contact clarifiers all the while increasing the plant capacity by 80% (120,000 m³/d). A costly plant expansion was avoided.

In June 2005, heavy rainfall had the Red Deer River reach record levels. Turbidity reached extremely high values and many water treatment plants in the area were forced to reduce treatment capacity in order to maintain treated water quality.

Randy Reaman, Water Treatment Plant Supervisor, explains how Red Deer managed the situation :

" During the recent flood event in Red Deer, the treatment plant experienced influent turbidities as high as 3250 NTU. The Actiflo^® clarification system functioned well during this event. Average clarified water turbidity was around 1.75 NTU. Filtered water turbidity averaged about 0.1 NTU throughout the flood event, with filter run times of 24 hours."

"We were very pleased with the performance of the Actiflo^® clarifiers during this event. They are quick to respond to changing conditions and have a range of forgiveness if chemical dosages are not precisely known."

"Other treatment plants in the Central Alberta area which use solids contact clarification appeared to have more difficulty in maintaining water quality. "