Santa Rita Water Reclamation Facility: Exceeding Wastewater Regulations

City of Durango, Colorado, Assistant Finance Director Jarrod Biggs and Utility Manager Justin Elkins describe the challenges brought on by aging infrastructure of the city’s Santa Rita Water Reclamation Facility and why they chose our firm to design solutions. Dewberry Senior Project Manager Patrick Radabaugh shares about our approach to addressing the plant’s challenges and our close collaboration with the city to address their needs.

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Jarrod Biggs (City of Durango): Some of the greatest challenges that we're facing in the city of Durango, speaking specifically to what we've done here, is infrastructure aging, challenges with under-investment for a number of years. So a lot of the efforts have been in recent years to make those investments, that way we can build those assets that are going to support our community for a long term. Our wastewater treatment plant was constructed on this site back in the fifties. There was an update that was done in the early eighties, and then after that there was really no investment in that facility in any significant way to improve treatment. With increasing environmental standards coming from the state and the EPA, we were looking down the road and with some help from some consultants, we were able to figure out that we needed to make some significant investments and we were able to do that here with the Santa Rita Water Reclamation Facility.

Justin Elkins (City of Durango): Dewberry was chosen as the design engineer for the Santa Rita Water Reclamation Facility because they've done this work in the past. They've installed facilities in other locations that meet the new regulations from CDPHE and work really well. They have an installation in Evans, they have an installation in Louisville, and it's very similar to the installation that they put here in Durango. We know that this type of plant works and it works really well, it's not operator intensive. And they have proven time and again that they can come in to a facility and with a small footprint, install a really well working plant.

Patrick Radabaugh (Dewberry): The city originally hired us to look at their treatment facility, come in and assess it, look at all the needs, look at it from a growth perspective and look at it from a regulatory perspective. Could it meet their needs now from a growth perspective? Could it meet the regulatory requirements that were coming up in the future? We went in and we evaluated their facility and found out that it was short, that it was actually operating at capacity currently, and that they were struggling to meet the current effluent limits and they had a nutrient limit coming on that was effective in about 15 months that that current facility couldn't meet. We worked with the city and identified a bunch of alternatives to upgrade the facility to help meet those requirements. So the city said — how can we make this upgraded facility, something that we're going to recognize that people aren't going to notice, but it's going to be a world class facility that sets us up for the current regulatory requirements and the future. So, we had to weigh in both the treatment requirements and the aesthetics to make sure that the facility blended into the current environment while setting the city up to meet future regulatory requirements. In fact, we went through this planning process, designed this facility, and the facility is operating so well right now that the city is able to upgrade or push off future regulatory requirements until 2042. So, they're not looking at doing any future treatment related infrastructure improvements at this facility until at least 2042. So, it was a really good investment for the city. This facility is amazing. It's a small facility, but does a lot of things that only large facilities do. We have primary clarifiers. We have anaerobic digesters to produce biogas. We have really strict effluent nutrient requirements. This facility has it all and it's in a small facility with a good community. They've got a good bunch of operators. We worked with them to hopefully fine tune and help optimize their process to make sure that we can get the most out of this that they can.

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