The City of Fishers, Indiana and Donohue received an ACEC Indiana Engineering Excellence Merit award for the Cheeney Creek WWTP expansion and optimization project. The Engineering Excellence Awards program recognizes engineering achievements, which demonstrate the highest degree of merit and ingenuity by showcasing successful projects to a statewide audience of clients and industry leaders through the Engineering Excellence Awards competition.

The project team was challenged to increase peak flow treatment capacity by 4 million gallons per day (25%) while meeting challenging budget and site constraints.  The design would expand WWTP design average flow capacity from 8.0 to 10.0 million gallons per day (mgd) and peak flow capacity from 16.0 to 20.0 mgd for under $10 million; the initial facility plan cost estimate was $22 million. Donohue and the City worked collaboratively to achieve and come under this cost goal: the final total project cost was $8.8 million.

From a sustainability standpoint, the expansion was designed so that no additional blower capacity, larger motor sizes, or larger return activated sludge pumps were needed. Moreover, operating efficiencies designed into this project resulted in the plant’s power consumption being about the same even with the 25% capacity increase.

This project creatively, cost-effectively, and sustainably addressed project complexities by repurposing and reconfiguring existing infrastructure to expand capacity and optimizing current processes to provide reliable, effective, and efficient pollutant removal. Because of this project, cleaner water is discharged to the White River, 25% more wastewater is treated at a lower cost per gallon, and the refined treatment process is poised to meet the needs of future growth.