ENR Water - 2-20-12

Drought IntolerantBy Linda Mastaglio

Water/Wastewater I

Water shortages plague growing geographies

Water remains a dwindling resource in many parts of the U.S. The subsequent problems are exacerbated by the drought conditions that have plagued certain regions throughout 2011 and are forecast to continue this year and beyond.

Drought conditions are primarily focused in Southern and Western states. Texas, for example, faced the driest 12 months in its history during 2010 and 2011. With an average of 8.5 in. of rain through last September, the period’s total precipitation was 13 in. below normal. The conditions not only impacted water utilities, but caused harm to infrastructure and buildings. Dry soil caused water pipelines to burst, while building foundations buckled and asphalt roads cracked and crumbled.

Furthermore, abnormal dryness and moderate drought reached Northern and Central California and significant parts of Nevada. According to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s National Drought Summary, not one drop of rain fell in Eureka, Nev. or Fresno, Cal. during December 2011—the first such occurrence since 1989. Residents of Reno, Nev. faced their first completely dry December since 1883. n

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

The four-phase Wichita Aquifer storage and recovery program wil provide water supply for the Wichita, Kan. area for the next 50+ years.

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EBAA IRON

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION Water/Wastewater I

Wichita Aquifer Wichita, Kansas OngoingThe large and complex Wichita Aquifer storage and recovery program will recharge the Equus Beds aquifer, protect water quality and provide water supply for the Wichita, Kan. area for the next 50+ years. The ongoing, four-phase program will restore the aquifer’s 1,400-sq-mile underground water reserve. Phase III and IV are in the planning stages and will likely provide an additional 60 MGD of diversion, recharge and recovery capacity.

Raw-Water TunnelsAustin, Texas Completion: 2014The raw-water tunnels and intake system for Austin’s Water Treatment Plant No. 4 include a 9-ft-dia, concrete-lined raw-water tunnel and a 7-ft-dia, steel-lined transmission tunnel connecting the pump station to the treatment plant. The raw-water intake structure is in Lake Travis in water depths up to 150 ft and the raw-water access shaft at the pump station is 30 ft in dia and over 400 ft deep.

Andermatt Wastewater Treatment Plant Uri, SwitzerlandCompletion: 2013Plant expansion is challenging due to a small site, rough climatic conditions at a height of 1,400 meters and the need to prevent noise and emissions in this resort area. Pre-treatment will involve a fine-screening process to remove coarse substances from the wastewater while simultaneously reducing the required biological-tank volume. Deep-bed filtration will aid discharge of the cleaned wastewater into the River Reuss.

Männedorf Wastewater Treatment Plant Location: Zürich, SwitzerlandCompletion: 2013The treatment facility is replacing its existing sand filtration system with a moving bed system in combination with activated sludge to enhance the biological-treatment stage. The current wastewater-filtration system will be converted to a dual-layer filtration and the number of filters will be doubled, from three to six. This will both increase plant-treatment capacity and provide for more flexible and safer plant operation.

Changi Water Reclamation PlantSingapore Completion: 2014The Changi Water Reclamation Plant is one of the largest and most advanced facilities of its kind in the world. The plant occupies 32 hectares, just one-third the equivalent footprint of a conventional facility. Its current capacity is 176 MGD. The expansion involves the addition of a membrane filtration treatment process to increase capacity. Equipment will be integrated with existing structures where feasible to reduce costs.TO

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Five for the FutureLeading Water Projects Underway Today

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The FedEx Express (FedEx) Memphis World Hub has made the Memphis International Airport the second busiest cargo airport in the world. The firm recently worked with Allen & Hoshall Inc. to construct a two-story canopy for international sorting operations that required a drainage collection system to remove sheet flow from the construction area.

“Logistics and schedule sensitivity have been paramount requirements to achieve the success that FedEx expects and Frierson plans to deliver,” says Ben Eberle, pre-construction manager with T.W. Frierson Contractor Inc. A Slotted Drain™ pipe from CONTECH Construction

Drain Solution Minimizes Construction Impact at FedEx Hub

Products Inc. was chosen for the solution. “The water collector system had to be installed below the existing concrete pavement and required demolition to allow for the install,” Eberle says. “We would not have been able to successfully deliver this scope of work without CONTECH’s

in-depth understanding of the system and attention to detail, schedule and cost.” Slotted Drain is fabricated from CONTECH corrugated steel pipe, which is cut along a longitudinal axis. A trapezoidal or straight-sided grate with reinforcing spacer plates is welded in place to form a 1 ¾-in.-wide slot opening which collects runoff and channels it to the pipe below. n

“We would not have been able to successfully deliver this scope of work without CONTECH’s in-depth understanding of the system and attention to detail, schedule and cost.”

— Ben Eberle, T.W. Frierson Contractor Inc.

The Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District is developing a new groundwater treatment plant next to the Jordan River in West Jordan, Utah. The plant will remove contamination from the local aquifer and produce 4,735 acre-ft-per-year of treated water using reverse osmosis. Flatiron is constructing the 38,000-sq-ft process building, three reverse osmosis trains,

Salt Lake City Suburb Adds Expandable Water Treatment Plant

New treatment plant to begin production in March 2012.

one bypass train utilizing ultraviolet light disinfection technology and cryptosidium removal bag filters. The construction of separate treatment trains is necessary to incorporate deep and shallow groundwater wells, supply wells, pipelines, a byproduct disposal system and associated facilities. Flatiron is also installing a new 1,400-ft-long pipe system to bring contaminated

When complete, the Southwest Groundwater Treatment Plant will include three reverse osmosis trains and one bypass train utilizing ultraviolet light disinfection technology and cryptosidium removal bag filters for water treatment.

water to the plant and return purified water back to the owner’s drinking water transmission system. The plant’s byproduct, a brine waste stream, will be piped 21 miles to the Great Salt Lake. Scheduled for completion in March 2012, the $26-million project is designed to accommodate future expansion to increase the plant’s capabilities from 7 MGD to 14 MGD. n

BURNS MCDONNEL

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A state-of-the-art wastewater treatment facility design project, which began in 2004, concluded last summer with the dedication of the wastewater conveyance system and treatment plant for the Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority (NACA). The project is the first step in NACA’s plan to ultimately provide regional wastewater utility services to its 10 member cities.

Northwest Arkansas Gains Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility

The facility provides a 4-MGD initial capacity with the ability to be readily expanded to 6 MGD and ultimately to as much as 80 MGD, as well as a conveyance system connecting to customer city-collection systems.

The $37-million facility incorporates multiple processes for nutrient removal, providing some of the lowest effluent phosphorus levels in the U.S., according to Steve Yonker, Burns & McDonnell project manager. Burns & McDonnell provided project planning and engineering for the regional wastewater treatment plant and USI Consulting Engineers was responsible for planning and design of the conveyance facilities. Treatment processes include influent pumping, fine screens, vortex grit removal, an activated sludge process designed for ammonia reduction and nitrogen and phosphorus removal, filtration, ultraviolet (UV) disinfection and post aeration. Biological treatment process solids are thickened and dewatered by a triple belt filter press.

“The three-step activated sludge treatment process with anaerobic, anoxic and aerobic zones removes most of the ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorus,” says Yonker. “To that we added an advanced, two-stage filtration process coupled with chemical addition to achieve very low levels of effluent phosphorus capable of meeting the facility’s 0.1 mg/l standard.”

The advanced filtration produces higher quality effluent and increases the effectiveness of the ultraviolet-light disinfection process that destroys pathogens in the wastewater before it is discharged into Osage Creek. The advanced filtration phosphorus-removal system added about $4 million to the plant’s costs but the project stayed within its original budget. n

ALL CRANE

Shear forces, differential settlement, seismic activity, thermal expansion and contraction, all make pipeline design and construction challenging. To reduce such difficulties, EBAA Iron created the Force Balanced FLEX-TEND® flexible expansion joint, which eliminates the need for thrust blocks and/or rodding and simplifies pipe-hanger and support apparatuses and designs.

“The standard FLEX-TEND solves the problem of protecting piping systems at shear planes and in many different soil conditions, but produces an expansion thrust force that must be accommodated for in the pipeline design,” says Karl Miersemann, product support manager with EBAA Iron. “What makes this Force Balanced FLEX-TEND unique is the balance chamber.”

Innovative Products Drive Solution For Pipeline Success



An Engineered SolutionThe internal pipeline pressure creates an expansion force within the FLEX-TEND, as well as the adjacent fitting and pipe joints. These forces of axial expansion typically require the use of thrust blocks to contain the hydraulic forces. Above-ground designs (as shown in the photo) must also accommodate these thrust forces, but engineers are challenged to hold these significant forces with the use of hangers, supports and guides, in order to alleviate lateral and vertical movement of the pipe joints.

Miersemann says that the Force Balanced FLEX-TEND gives designers a new option for absorbing the forces on piping systems that occur from seismic events, differential settlement, structural shear planes and various other conditions. Eliminating the force imparted by hydrostatic pressure on

This 8-in. Force Balanced FLEX-TEND® on a Burlingame, Calif. bridge crossing uses internal hydrostatic pressure by means of a piston. This neutralizes the expansion forces that could cause the unit to expand and deflect independently of the forces it was designed to alleviate.

the flexible expansion joint, allows the designer and installers to focus on the issues that precipitate the need for the flexible expansion joint in the first place. n

ISCO INDUSTRIES

CONTECH CON



Lift-Planning Helps Ensure Safety and EfficiencyThe city of Lakewood, Ohio recently used federal economic stimulus funds to make improvements to the sludge-handling equipment at their Lakewood Wastewater Treatment Plant. The upgrades allow for a two-stage mesophilic/thermophilic digestion process, but this improvement necessitated new floating covers for the plant’s secondary digester tanks.

To lift and place the lids, which weighed over 50,000 lbs., heavy equipment expert ALL Erection & Crane Rental Corp. of Cleveland, Ohio, recommended a Grove GMK5240 240-ton all-terrain crane. One challenge was that the job site was extremely tight and required positioning of the crane directly between the tanks. Using ALL’s 3D Lift Plan, an Internet-based application, lift planners visualized and simulated the entire lift—from the placement of the crane to the exact weight of the load.

According to Marty LaCava, the ALL sales representative, this application is available on every on-board crane computer

in the ALL fleet. “With the increased ability to calculate and view every detail, ALL’s lift-planning experts can find the most economical crane and rigging configurations for a specific pick, plan around jobsite obstructions and view the site from all angles,” LaCava says. Due to the tight area on this project, the crane needed an exact pick radius of 70 ft and a swing radius of 18 ft 3 in. The actual swing radius had to be within 3 ft of the plan. In addition, the ground had to be slightly altered to allow for the pads and outriggers.

The lids, which were built on the ground, were picked one at a time and set in place. “Lift-planning improves lift safety by improving foresight and real-time lift accuracy,” LaCava says. n

On-board computers, equipped with 3D Lift Plan, determined the exact weight of the domed lid plus the weight of the rig-ging block—a total of 60,270 lbs. per lid.

FLATIRON

ENR Water - 2-20-12

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