SHAFDAN (Greater Tel Aviv Wastewater Treatment Plant): recent upgrade and expansion

The SHAFDAN is the largest wastewater treatment plant in Israel and currently treats 360,000 m³/day of municipal wastewater, about 92% of its treatment capacity. Waste sludge from the plant is discharged to the Mediterranean Sea through a marine outfall. The SHAFDAN is committed to ending the disposal of its sludge to the sea by the end of 2016 by providing a land-based biosolids management program that produces a Class A biosolids for agricultural use. In order to implement this strategy, a number of large-scale construction projects were undertaken. These projects include a new sludge thickening and dewatering facility, updated headworks, a new primary treatment facility, and a new 3-stage thermophilic anaerobic digestion facility. The total capital cost of these projects is estimated to be US $300 million. This paper describes the principal components of these projects and their design parameters.