GRAND RAPIDS - Not having enough safe clean drinking water is a future problem many researchers face, and MSU is working with organizations across the state to solve that problem.
Global Enterprise for Water Technology, a nonprofit organization, is planning on reinventing an old Grand Rapids water filtration plant in order to do research on water.
“It would be one of the largest experimental sites for new technologies for treating drinking water,” said Jon Bartholic, director of institute of water research at MSU. “It would make the water safe from new bacterias and viruses.”
The renovated plant will be called Clearwater Plaza, and with the help of MSU professors and graduate students, may become the United States’ first full-scale water research facility.
“We would invite researchers from all over the world to talk about water treatment problems, and test ideas,” said Mackenzie Davis, an MSU environmental engineering professor who is helping to redesign the plant. “We can give this building a new life and make it a leader again.”
The plant, originally called the Monroe Avenue Water Filtration Plant, was built in 1912 and additions were added in 1924. The plant brought in water from the Grand River and was the first facility in the country to put fluoride in the water.
“It’s been a leader in how to make water safe and clean to drink,” Davis said.
In 1992 the plant was shut down, because the water from the Grand River was considered too dirty. Another plant was built near Lake Michigan and water was pumped from there.
Thomas Newhof, president of Global Enterprise for Water Technology, has been involved with the plant since the 1980s when his firm Prein & Newhof was called to investigate a chloroform outbreak. He came up with the idea of a research facility about the same time Dykema Excavating purchased the plant to store dirt.
“No one had serious interest in it until after a year it dawned on me that this would be a great place for full-scale plant research,” Newhof said. “This would be a great place to try it out, and there is nobody at risk.”
The organization still has seven of the 12 water tanks to use as test facilities and hopes to get started once it raises the $21 million needed to renovate the plant.
The plant would be able to have five small water treatment facilities that each run two million gallons of water through them a day, while the front of the building will contain a museum where the public can come learn more about water.
“MSU researchers are excited about the opportunity of getting to help design a research facility that will reach plant scale,” Davis said. “To the best of our knowledge there is no place in the world that can do what this plant will be able to do.”
The plant, which has Mediterranean renaissance architecture, will be restored to what it looked like in 1912, while the inside will contain research facilities and conference rooms.
“We will keep the 1912 architecture of the building,” Davis said. “But scientifically, it will look like 2010.
“I am really excited about the possibilities.”
