An approach to the analysis of the critical control points of the Costa Brava water reclamation facilities

Consorci Costa Brava is a public water utility created in 1971 responsible of the management of the water cycle in NE Spain. Reclaimed water is produced in 13 facilities which, over the years, have improved their performance and reliability. Operational protocols, online probes, quality-protection criteria and automatization have been instrumental to increase the safety of water reuse by both reducing the risk of failures in the key processes of the reclamation treatment, and by reducing the likelihood that water of insufficient quality could ever reach the end user. This degree of protection has been achieved after identifying the critical control points (CCPs) and the attention points (APs) of the reclamation treatments and also after establishing threshold safety levels for the essential parameters. Since disinfection is key in reclamation treatments, the main CCPs are linked to that process, either if only one disinfectant is applied or if a combination of two or more are used. Another key CCP is at the secondary effluent level, as raw material for the subsequent processes. APs are points where water quality and/or performance of the treatment can be easily monitored to provide additional information on the reliability of the processes.