Community Center Makes A Splash With An Upgraded Facility

The current equipment in the community center pool was outdated, and the Aquatic Program Supervisor found that they were losing a lot of water due to the current piping setup. The equipment required 3–4 backwashes a week for each of the five sand filters.

Challenge

The Portland Parks and Recreation’s Matt Dishman Community Center is located on the site of the former Eliot Grade School. After the school was relocated, PP&R took it over in 1950 and remodeled the building, naming it the Knott Street Community Center. In the late 1960s, the local community lobbied to name the center after Matt Dishman, the first African-American Multnomah County sheriff and police officer in the city of Portland.

The L-shaped 6 lane competitive pool and spa has seen its share of bathers and was in need of a makeover to keep up with current community demands. The community center focused their efforts on reviewing their current mechanical room setup. Supporting the community center’s quality and volume of water was five traditional pool sand filters; three were dedicated to the pool water, while the other two filters were dedicated to the spa water. Not only was the current equipment outdated, but the Aquatic Program Supervisor found that they were losing a lot of water due to the current piping setup and the required 3–4 backwashes a week for each of the five sand filters. 

The City of Portland reviewed their water quality and volume data from a similar sized pool located in a LEED platinum facility, where they had installed regenerative media filters versus traditional sand filters. With their previous successes working with Evoqua the team reached out to our aquatic specialists to discuss the Portland Parks and Recreation’s Matt Dishman Community Center upgrade project. 

Solution

With sustainability concerns being top of mind, Evoqua recommended the installation of two Defender® regenerative media filters to replace the five traditional sand filters. By using Defender regenerative media filters and an ETS-UV™ ultraviolet system, the community center started saving over 200,000 gallons of water annually in comparison with the previous sand filter systems that required regular backwashing. Defender regenerative media filters eliminated the need to backwash by providing a daily regeneration process of the perlite media. When the media needs to be changed, once every few months, it only requires one or two filter tank volumes to drain and rinse the filter. Once new media is loaded, the regeneration cycle starts over again equating to substantial water and energy savings.  

Transitioning from five pool sand filters to two Defender units also freed up a lot of room in the already tight mechanical room. Coupling the regenerative media filter technology found in the Defender filter with a medium pressure ETS-UV system helped the community center filter particulate down to one micron in size, while also tackling concerns of chloramines and chlorine resistant pathogens in the water.