Hussey Gay Bell has won the 2017 ACEC Georgia Engineering Excellence Awards in the "Waste and Storm Water" category for its design of Richmond Hill’s new Sterling Creek Water Reclamation Facility.
The project consisted of planning, designing and constructing a 4-million gallon a day, five-stage biological nutrient removal plant to comply with a consent order issued to the city for noncompliance of its existing 1.5-MGD overland flow constructed wetlands treatment plant. And there was the city’s growth to consider. Richmond Hill’s population in 2014, according to the U.S. Census, was 11,229, compared to 6,959 in 2000.
"This system will not only meet today’s need it will meet all of our needs in the near future," Mayor Harold Fowler said earlier.
Hussey Gay Bell was the original engineer for the city’s existing sewer plant with overland flow fields and constructed wetlands, built in the 1990s. A news release from the firm said wetlands changed over time and the plant began to have problems with ammonia reduction. The aerated lagoons had significant sludge accumulation which reduced the hydraulic retention time, oxygen transfer efficiency and resulted in violations of biologic oxygen demand levels in the plant effluent.
The city ultimately entered into a consent order with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division that required design and construction of a new plant and, in response, selected Hussey Gay Bell to design and permit it, and oversee construction.
The new plant, an Ovivo Kubota flat plate membrane bioreactor (MBR) system, is able to treat up to 3 million gallons per day – double its previous capacity. By installing additional equipment, the plant is expandable to 4.0 MGD, which the city is already permitted for. The plant will use several steps in treating sewage, including biologic treatment and solids separation via the membrane bioreactors. Treated effluent from the new plant will be pumped to the city’s current outfall location at Elbow Swamp, as well as reused to sustain the isolated constructed wetlands.
As the largest single expenditure in the city’s history, the news release said the project faced complex challenges, including designing a plant permitted to discharge into a coastal watershed and constructing on poor soils within a restricted timeframe to meet the requirements of an EPD consent order. By embracing state-of-the-art technologies and founding new applications for tried and true technologies, this design team was able to deliver a final product to a Yellow Zone community that, by innovative design, provides the community with reuse of reclaimed water.
"The Sterling Creek WRF uses the most advanced techniques to treat wastewater through biological nutrient removal, flat plate membrane technology and disinfection with ultraviolet light," the company’s release said. "This treatment process produces reuse quality effluent as a renewable resource for non-potable irrigation of public parks, recreation areas and golf courses. In addition, this facility produces the highest quality effluent for protection of the Ogeechee River Watershed, a critical natural resource for the community of Richmond Hill."
The mayor has said the plant solved a long-standing problem.
"Over six years ago, when I was sworn in, there were some plans to build a wastewater treatment plant; it wasn’t really state-of-the-art like this one is. This system will not only meet today’s needs but all of our needs in the near future."
The city received $23.5 million in loans from the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority to build the plant. GEFA provides communities with low-interest loans for sewage treatment and water pollution-reduction projects. Constructed by Bainbridge, Georgia-based Bates Engineers/Contractors, Inc., the plant started operating in April.
Hussey Gay Bell representatives, Fowler and City Manager Chris Lovell will accept the award during the inaugural Georgia Engineering Awards gala on Feb. 25 in Atlanta.