Solution
With just eight months remaining before the casino planned to open its doors, the City of Mulvane hired Burns & McDonnell and CAS LLC to design and construct the wastewater improvements to accommodate the new development under a fast-track, design-build contract.
While the team faced a tight timeline, it was not the first time they’d worked together to solve a need for the city. Five years earlier, the same team had designed and constructed the city’s new wastewater treatment plant. This collaborative endeavor gave the team the experience and understanding necessary to take on the new project with a high level of confidence and commitment.
The team faced tighter time constraints for this project, but the design-build nature of the project created a series of efficiencies that helped the city meet its goal. We worked with the city’s staff and plant operators starting early in the process. This gave the city staff a better understanding of the plant layout, equipment and operations as the design and construction decisions were being made. That paved the way for a smooth startup with no disruptions to existing customers.
The project team also was able to incorporate sustainable strategies into the wastewater treatment expansion by reusing existing infrastructure, incorporating natural lighting into the facility, selecting sustainable materials, and achieving energy savings through dissolved oxygen control and anoxic treatment methods. An on-site irrigation system was incorporated to apply liquid biosolids to nearby crops as fertilizer thus lowering the overall cost of operation.
