Technologies and Costs for Removal of Arsenic From Drinking Water

of California Water Agencies indicated that land costs could be as high as 5% of total annualizedcosts. This is based on land prices in California, so it represents an upper bound for the nation.It is expected that systems with existing treatment will usually have adequate land available.Furthermore, small ground water systems are not expected to have land acquisition requirements.Intermediate to large ground water systems and large surface water systems with appreciable groundwater use may need to acquire land. However, according to SDWIS, these systems comprise onlyabout five percent of all community water systems in the United States.Based on the above discussion, 5% of the capital costs was selected as the upper boundincrease associated with land at ground water sites. This upper bound can be used in a sensitivityanalysis to evaluate an upper bound impact of land on costs. Many systems may not need to purchaseland for arsenic treatment.RetrofittingAll costs presented in this document are for new construction, with the exception of theenhanced coagulation and enhanced lime softening processes. All processes contained in the costmodels include pipes and valves, electrical and instrumentation, and other costs associated withretrofitting. It was assumed that the costs included are sufficient for the retrofit of existingcoagulation/filtration and softening plants.PermittingThe Very Small Systems Document, the Water Model and the W/W Model all include costsfor legal, fiscal and administrative costs. These costs vary by model and system size. Legal, fiscaland administrative costs are included in the engineering cost factor. For the base case, permittingcosts are covered by the legal, fiscal and administrative costs in the models.An upper bound for sensitivity analysis was based on the Technology Design Panelrecommendation of permitting costs as 3% of construction value (EPA, 1998). Participants in the TDPalso recommended a floor of $2500 for systems serving less than 10,000 people. The upper bound thatcan be used to assess sensitivity of the costs to permitting is an additional 3% of the capital costsrather than 3% of the construction value. This approach will yield a higher cost for permitting.3-14