The Alberta Town of High Level will begin construction later in 2025 on a $6.6 million Magnetic Ion Exchange (MIEX) process upgrade to its water treatment facility.
Local officials passed a resolution to move forward with the new pretreatment process at a council meeting on January 13. They say the MIEX upgrade could save the community hundreds of thousands of dollars in water treatment costs.
“The Town of High Level has some of the highest water treatment costs in the province,” High Level Mayor Crystal McAteer said in a statement. “This is an important project that will improve the quality of life for our community as well as for our water users, and at the same time will save us money further into the process on carbon and chemical costs.”
A pilot study was completed at the water treatment plant in 2023 in coordination with Associated Engineering. The study found that the MIEX process led to reduced coagulant use, decreased organics loading on treatment filters, and reduced disinfectant byproducts.
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Local officials described the MIEX process as a pretreatment process “similar to a water softener”, except its purpose is to remove naturally-occurring organic carbons, colour, sulphates, and bromide from the water before it enters the primary water treatment process. The pretreatment process improves the final disinfection and lowers activated carbon demand, while reducing overall operational costs, according to the municipality.
The MIEX system had its first large-scale implementation in Australia in 2002. It is now a standard pretreatment practice in more than 70 water treatment plants in 12 countries, including the U.S. and Canada.
Conklin, a hamlet in northern Alberta, has also found recent success using MIEX for pretreatment.
The High Level facility is a Class 3 water treatment plant capable of producing 9000 m3 per day and has a 4000 m3 treated water storage reservoir.
Construction of the High Level MIEX project will begin in 2025, with the renovation of the water treatment plant to accommodate the new construction of the MIEX system. Project completion and commissioning is expected in the spring of 2026.
