The Challenge
River intakes in large rivers face a series of challenges from huge fluctuations in river levels and turbidity, ice flow damage in the winter, fish habitat impact and DFO licensing, river navigability and DOT requirements, and last but not least local stakeholder concerns. Integrated Sustainability proposed a truly innovative intake that solved these challenges.
The Result
Applying an approach used in Europe and the United States, Integrated Sustainability has pioneered the application of riverbank filtration (RBF) intakes for Industrial applications in Canada. The RBF design does not require in-river construction. Instead a large caisson is sunk in the bank of the river and lateral shafts are jacked horizontally from its base into the riverbank aquifer.
The benefits of the RBF are significant; 1) the riverbank itself acts as a turbidity filter producing better water quality and reducing costs of treatment, 2) the caissons are immune to river ice and the intake does impact fish or river navigability. The RBF is also very discrete and local stakeholders have embraced it over the standard in-river intake.
