CHALLENGE

With a rapidly growing customer base, the Town of Erie faced the need to expand its water treatment facility. The goal of the expansion was to increase the treatment plant’s capacity from 9.9 millions of gallons per day (MGD) to 16.6 MGD. The facility was last expanded in 2005.

SOLUTION

As the designer for the last major expansion to the Lynn R. Morgan Water Treatment Plant, our team was selected to provide design services for the current expansion and to work in close coordination with Garney Construction using an alternative delivery method.

The expansion included yard piping modifications to eliminate hydraulic bottlenecks, a new pretreatment train, three new submerged membrane trains, a new high-service pump and a new finished water transmission main.

Our team also conducted a feasibility study for the addition of hydroelectric power generation on the existing raw water supply pipeline from the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. The study included engineering and economic analysis of the potential upgrade. Based on the findings from the study, the town decided to move forward with the hydroelectric facility, which will power approximately 20% of the WTP’s overall energy needs.