How to Identify Priority Areas
To identify priority areas where improvements will have the most impact, wineries must develop a solid understanding of how water is used and how material enters the wastewater stream and contributes to wastewater loading.
Focusing only on reducing water use without reducing wastewater loading can result in higher wastewater concentrations.
concentration = loading ÷ volume
Without data on water use, wineries have no way to determine if water is being used efficiently.
Water monitoring is a low-cost and easy way to get an accurate understanding of how water is being used in different processes.
This data also represents a baseline from which wineries can set goals and track progress over time.
Example: Reducing Water Consumption and Wastewater Loading in a Sample Winery
A winery was interested in reducing it’s water consumption and wastewater loading to help reduce the potential costs and risks associated with increased growth in production.
They realised that in order to make informed and cost-effective improvements to their processes, they needed to get a better understanding and a baseline of how they used water and generated wastewater.
The winery planned their water monitoring strategy and installed meters so they could measure and obtain data on how much water is used in different activities.
Case Study: Identifying Hot Spots at Jackson-Triggs Okanagan Estate Winery
Oliver, BC
As one of the largest wineries in Canada, Jackson-Triggs had a significant impact on the municipal system in their small community of Oliver, BC. To help support the community, the winery started down the path to find ways to reduce their effluent volumes and went through a series of audits of what was going down the drain on a process by process basis. Through this structured approach the winery achieved a 40% reduction in their volumes in one year. Their goal has always been to find ways to reduce reuse recycle in any and every way possible.
BOD values were another challenge. The overall kg of BOD going down the drain was also reduced by 40% thanks to their process audits, but the concentration (mix) remained the same. To ensure the best possible outcome, the winery installed an anaerobic wastewater treatment plant in 2011 - for primary and secondary treatment to bring down the BOD concentration. The anaerobic plant reduces their BOD concentration by around 95%.