Severn Trent Provides UV Disinfection Systems for Town of Sterling, Mass.

Severn Trent Services, Inc., installed two of its UltraDynamics ultraviolet (UV) disinfection systems at the Town of Sterling, Mass. (population 7,500) potable water treatment plant, a 1.5 million-gallon-per-day facility. The new systems, part of the complete plant upgrade system designed by Fay, Spofford & Thorndike, Inc., Burlington, Mass., provide easy operation, low risk and the elimination of disinfection byproducts. UV disinfection replaces chlorination as the process used to alleviate bacterial contamination.

"I firmly believe that we should be taking things out of our water rather than putting something like chlorine in. With the town’s support, the decision to use UltraDynamics as the permanent disinfectant actualizes this belief," said Department of Public Works, Town of Sterling Superintendent Louis Manring. "This will take us back to the good-tasting Sterling water we used to have," he said.

After examining various disinfection methods, Manring and the citizens of Sterling unanimously decided to use UV disinfection as a result of the successful implementation of an operational Severn Trent UV system in nearby Westford, Mass., also part of a Fay, Spofford & Thorndike, Inc., plant design.