Speaking

The presentation will demonstrate multiple wet weather storage and treatment facilities to examine the key factors to evaluate when identifying the right solution for the right location. Particular attention will be given to four projects from the Louisville and Jefferson County MSD in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville MSD selected four very different storage solutions for four different areas within their sewer system. We will discuss why each was the right solution for that particular area. The case studies will be used to demonstrate multiple factors to consider that impact the selection and configuration of the optimum wet-weather storage system.

The presentation will feature the Louisville Southwestern Parkway Basin complex located in, or more accurately under, a historic park. The Design Build Institute of America (DBIA) named this $78 million, 20 million-gallon (MG) underground storage basin project as the 2019 Water/Wastewater Project of the Year and presented it with their National 2019 Excellence in Engineering award for all types of projects. ASCE has named the project a “Game Changer.” The other featured Louisville projects include the 104 MG Buechel Basin Complex (MSD’s biggest basin system and one of the largest in the country), the Fairmount Pump Station Equalization Basin and the Waterway Protection Tunnel located under downtown Louisville. By examining the factors to consider when weighing the different storage and treatment technology options, you will learn how to identify the right solution for the right location.

The City of Columbus embarked on a $2.5 billion plan to reduce combined sewage overflows throughout their collection system. A cornerstone of those plans was the construction of additional treatment capacity for wet weather flows at the Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant. The chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) facilities will increase the treatment capacity of the plant by 110 MGD, to a total of 440 MGD.

Because the new CEPT facilities are only operated during large wet weather events, the facilities have been designed to be simple and flexible while minimizing maintenance effort. This presentation will provide an overview of the facility, the wet weather treatment start-up results, start-up lessons learned of a major treatment train that is dependent on weather, and ongoing operational improvements. 

The initial wet weather treatment results presented will include the sampling plan parameters compared to regulatory limits. The start-up lessons learned will be captured from the management challenges of coordinating a multi-contract project to operational challenges of an intermittently run facility that is fully dependent on the weather. On-going operational improvements will be explained, such as improved automatic operations, chemical dosing, and sludge pumping.