Lee H. Odell is a water treatment specialist for Jacobs with 30 years of experience as an engineering consultant and 4 years of experience as a water treatment plant operator and operations supervisor.

Mr. Odell has managed more than 200 water treatment projects including development of treatment systems for disinfection by products reduction, turbidity removal, algae removal, softening, radium, uranium, radon, iron, manganese, hydrogen sulfide, nitrate, chromium VI, and arsenic. He has also worked on many types of disinfection systems including UV, ozone, on-site sodium hypochlorite generation, liquid sodium hypochlorite, calcium hypochlorite, gas chlorine, fluoride (hydrofluororsilicic acid, sodium fluoride) and corrosion control (lime feed, soda ash feed, caustic soda, sodium silicate, orthophosphate feed systems). Mr. Odell has conducted pilot testing, demonstration testing, design, and has overseen installation of many types of groundwater treatment technologies.

Design accomplishments include:

  • Creating more than 30 installations with capacities ranging from 8 ppd to 1,000 ppd.
  • Designing installations using the following equipment: Clortec (Severn Trent), Miox, Electrolytic Technologies, OSEC (Siemens) and MicrOclor.
  • The first on-site sodium hypochlorite facility in Washington State in 1995 for Clark Public Utilities
  • The first iron and manganese facility in the United States to use manganese dioxide ore media. Since 1996, he has used this process on more than 100 drinking water supplies.
  • The first hydrous manganese oxide system in the State of Illinois, for the City of Batavia, to cost effectively remove radium from the city's groundwater.
  • The design and construction of the first two arsenic removal water treatment plants in the United States which used granular ferric hydroxide as an adsorbent. The plants are both located in the Los Angeles area and cost less than half the capital cost of other alternatives.

Mr. Odell is also the author of the book Treatment Technologies for Groundwater, published by American Water Works Association in 2010. Lee is also the Chair of the ASCE/EWRI Committee Drinking Water Supply Treatment and Distribution Engineering Committee.

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