May 2022: Salmones Camanchaca reduces water consumption by 25% and expects to achieve a 40% reduction over the coming months

These measures have brought us very close to meeting our goal, and we can proudly say that water consumption has been reduced by 25% so far this year, equivalent to 350,000 liters per day. We are making rapid progress and have achieved the most important part of our annual goal.

Jorge Vergara, Process Manager at Salmones Camanchaca, in an interview with Diario Sustentable

Tell us how the initiative to reduce water consumption at the Tomé plant began?

The initiative began 10 years ago. We have been consistently reducing consumption since then and have reduced it by around 50% so far. However, extraordinary measures were triggered at the beginning of 2022 when a significant drop in all the water tables in the Tomé basin was detected, which affected the catchment points for Empresa de Servicios Sanitarios del Bio-Bío S.A., Essbio, and which reduced our catchment by approximately 50%. Therefore, we set ourselves the very challenging goal of reducing the plant’s water consumption by 30%, and we have introduced various initiatives to achieve it.

What were these initiatives?

We reduced the flow rates and pressures in our pumps that supply the processing plant, which was supported by various investments, such as customizing specific equipment and reducing other pumps that were already in use.

We swept each water outlet terminal and focused on maintenance to prevent and control potential leaks. We also implemented pulse valves that automatically shut off, which has resulted in significant savings.

The rotary filter at the industrial liquid waste treatment plant separates solids from liquids and it has a self-cleaning system. This process used to use fresh water, but this has now been replaced by treated wastewater.

We also conducted a very important internal communication campaign that explained good operational practices to reduce water consumption. We created a WhatsApp group called “let’s conserve water” that displayed daily water consumption by section. Our employees fully supported this process.

These measures have brought us very close to meeting our goal, and we can proudly say that water consumption has been reduced by 25% so far this year, equivalent to 350,000 liters per day. We are making rapid progress and have achieved the most important part of our annual goal.

What are your medium and long-term goals?

Our goal is to reach 30% in two months’ time and we want to surpass it and reach 40%.

Our remaining initiatives require investment, so they will take a couple of years. There are two main excessive consumption points. Firstly, the evaporative condensers in the machine room that cool the tunnels. Secondly, the trim removal vacuum pump, which could reuse the water used for cooling.

We are also evaluating whether to change the water matrix for our plant within 18 months, as it exclusively uses fresh drinking water, but we could use 60% fresh water and 40% salt water extracted directly from the sea only three kilometers from the plant. We are still analyzing this idea, as there is no technical feasibility report or anything concrete yet.

Furthermore, if we can install a pipeline to extract the salt water, we could install a desalination plant in the future, which would reduce our fresh water use to zero. This could be an extremely sustainable solution, as it would use an almost infinite resource. However, this is not a concrete initiative yet, but it is on the radar for the not so distant future.

Source: https://www.diariosustentable.com/2022/05/jorge-vergara-gerente-procesos-de-salmones-camanchaca-con-orgullo-podemos-decir-que-reducimos-los-consumos-de-agua-en-un-25-y-en-los-proximos-meses-buscamos-alcanzar-un-40/