Centralized softening as a solution to chloride pollution: An empirical analysis based on Minnesota cities

Chloride is a key component of salt, used in many activities such as alkali production, water treatment, and de-icing. Chloride entering surface and groundwater is a concern due to its toxicity to aquatic life and potential to degrade drinking water sources. Minnesota being a hard-water state, has a high demand for water softening. Recent research has found that home-based water softeners contribute significantly to chloride loading at municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Because of this, many WWTPs would now require water quality based effluent limits (WQBELs) to comply with the state’s chloride water quality standards (WQS), unless they install chloride treatment technologies, which are limited and cost-prohibitive to most communities. A potential solution to this problem, is shifting from home-based water softening to a system where water is softened at drinking water plants, before reaching homes, i.e. centralized softening, analyzed in this paper based on its ability to address both chloride pollution and water softening needs, at reasonable cost. We estimate lifetime costs of three alternative solutions: centralized softening, home-based softening, and a Business as Usual (BAU) or baseline alternative, using annualized 20-year loan payments and Net Present Value (NPV), applied to 84 Minnesota cities with matching data on drinking water plants and WWTPs. We find that centralized softening using either Reverse Osmosis (RO) or lime-softening technologies is the more cost-effective solution, compared to the alternative of home-based softening with end-of-pipe chloride treatment, with a cost ratio in the range 1:3–1:4. Between the two centralized softening options, we find RO-softening to be the lower cost option, only slightly more costly (1.1 cost ratio) than the BAU option. Considering additional environmental and public health benefits, and cost savings associated with removal of home-based softeners, our results provide helpful information to multiple stakeholders interested in an effective solution to chloride pollution.