ABSTRACT
Because of the restrictions placed on the use of groundwater to produce drinking water and industrial water, the WOB, NRE and WML water companies took the initiative in 1994 to conduct a deep well recharge tests with surface water from the Zuid-Willemsvaart, a small canal in the south of the Netherlands. The project, known as DIZON, will be completed at the end of 1998. The DIZON project demonstrates that deep well recharge is a suitable method for preparing drinking water from surface water obtained from the Zuid-Willemsvaart canal. To produce drinking water of equal quality to that prepared from groundwater, a pilot plant for deep well recharge has been set up in the town of Someren. The water is pretreated, deep well recharged and recovered locally at a depth of 300 metres below surface level.
Recharge ensures hygienic reliability. The pretreatment, including, in order, microstraining, flocculation, flotation, rapid sand filtration, active carbon filtration and slow sand filtration, makes the surface water suitable for deep well recharge. Problems such as well clogging are now under control. The DIZON-project shows that operating on a production scale is technically feasible. This paper concentrates on the experience with recharge. The treatment results of the pretreatment, and the above-ground simulation of well clogging are also briefly considered.
