Procurement News Notice |
|
| PNN | 10280 |
| Work Detail | The new $24.4 million water treatment plant in Bucyrus is on pace to be completed by May of 2017, according to Kyle Massie, a project engineer with Danis Industrial Construction. The company broke ground on the project in July of 2015 after much planning by city officials. It's the city's third such facility. The first water plant, built in 1883, lasted until the World War II era. The current plant was built in 1950. Although the plant will be completed in May, it won't become fully operational until later in the summer, according to Don Fox, the city's water treatment supervisor. "The new plant will go online and will run for about two months before we demolish the old one, just to make sure there aren't any problems," Fox said. The existing water treatment plant can produce 4 million gallons of fresh water each day, but Fox said the city doesn't even use half that amount. "We're only treating 1.3 million gallons a day," Fox said. "The new plant is designed to treat 3 million gallons of water a day. If we would need more water treated, additional treatment tanks could be added." Although the new plant is a little smaller, Fox said his staff of seven employees will remain. An average of 35 construction workers have been at the site each day for the past year, Massie said. By the end of the project, more than 25 subcontracting companies will have worked on portions of the new plant. The nearly 1 billion gallons of fresh water in Outhwaite Reservoir will serve as the facility's primary water supply, but Massie said the plant can draw from the city's other two reservoirs if necessary. Incoming water is pumped into one of two large reservoirs where a mixture of treatment chemicals is added. It is then forced through a series of reservoirs filled with layers of various aggregates that catch large contaminants. The new plant features two extra layers of filtration, the first of which is four large tanks filled with granular activated carbon. "We call them GAC tanks for short," Massie said. "They're pretty much like the filters you'd have at home under your sink, just really big ones." The next layer is a tank that sends ultraviolet light waves through the water, which Fox said is a "safety barrier for disinfection." The new plant also will treat the water with sodium hypochlorite, rather than chlorine. "That's safer for the environment," Fox said. Massie added that water tastes better when treated with sodium hypochlorite instead of chlorine. A nice feature of the new plant is a state-of-the-art control panel that senses any changes in either usage or supply, and adjusts the flow of the plant accordingly. "It will talk with the technician's smartphones while they're at home," Massie said. "If there's a problem, it calls them immediately. A lot of these plants pretty much run themselves." The only downside of the new facility is it's price — the city estimated last year that the average residential water users in Bucyrus could see their water bill increase by 20 cents a day, or about $6.30 each month. The city has not raised its water rates since 2002. |
| Country | United States , Northern America |
| Industry | Water & Sanitation, Construction |
| Entry Date | 15 Oct 2016 |
| Source | http://www.bucyrustelegraphforum.com/story/news/2016/09/09/water-plant-construction-flowing-good-pace/90122128/ |
