There are currently no standard methods for the collection and treatment of compwater onshore. Large volumes and high discharge rates of compwater can be encountered during ship's refueling evolution making this problem unique and challenging. Current treatment and disposal cost of oily waste is very high and significant cost savings can be realized with a new approach.

NFESC, through funding by NAVFAC, is developing a cost-effective method to collect and treat compwater on shore. The system being developed will utilize a barge as the collection mechanism and a simple cyclone oil/water separator for the removal of waste constituents. The treated effluent will be of sufficient quality to meet pretreatment standards or POTW limits. The savings will be derived from avoiding the more expensive treatment of oily/waste through a typical oily/waste treatment plant (e.g. BOWTS), a process that uses chemicals, and is more labor extensive.

The compliance benefits listed here are only meant to be used as a general guideline and are not meant to be strictly interpreted. Actual compliance benefits will vary depending on the factors involved, e.g. the amount of workload involved.

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• This system demonstrates an effective process to collect and treat compensated fuel ballast water or compwater. The current method of treating compwater is through the use of an oily/waste treatment facility similar to BOWTS. This method is not as cost-effective because the compwater is relatively clean compared to typical oily waste such as bilge water. Also, the volume of compwater that can be generated can be large and the discharge rate can be very high, making a conventional collection and treatment system impractical.
• Capturing 100 percent of compwater during inport refueling will also guarantee that no micoorganisms or non-indigenous species will be released into the environment.
• Another benefit concerns the ability of a compwater ship to refuel inport, meeting increasingly stringent requirements.

• Capturing and treating compwater in port is more time consuming than the current practice of direct discharge into the harbor.

The average oily waste treatment cost is 25 cents per gallon. The proposed, barge mounted treatment system could process the relatively clean compwater for 1.6 cents per gallon. With average refueling evolution discharges of 200,000 gallons of compwater per ship and an average ship refueling once every two months, an activity could save approximately $280K/yr/ship. To this writing, there are currently 78 navy ships with compwater system, the approximate savings Navy-wide could reach over $20M/yr.

Approval is controlled locally and should be implemented only after engineering approval has been granted. Major claimant approval is not required.