The Georgia Engineering Alliance (GEA) recognized the Henry County Water & Sewarage Authority (HCWSA) and Stantec Consulting Services with a 2006 Engineering Excellence Honor Award for their collaboration on the Tussahaw Reservoir, one of only 10 such projects, statewide, to be recognized with this honor. The HCCWSA designed its Tussahaw Reservioir to help secure the drinking water needs of its growing number of customers for the next 20 years and beyond.
“We are very proud to receive this type of industry recognition for a project that is so critically important to our customers, as well as to our overall master plan and future operations,” said Lindy Farmer, general manager or the HCWSA. “I think it shows that we didn’t rush into anything, nor did we take any shortcuts to get the project done. It’s been a long process to get the reservoir approved, permitted and constructed, but as this award reflects, it’s been well worth it to do things the right way.”
Farmer praised the efforts of the employees at the authority and the consultants from Stantec who have worked well together for a number of years on this challenging collaboration.
“We’ve enjoyed a real team effort, and we have been blessed by having some really fine professionals working on this project,” Farmer added. “From our staff to the people at Stantec to the general contractor on down, we’ve worked well together to complete this project within budget and on schedule, for the ultimate benefit of the people of Henry County.”
The GEA sponsors the annual Engineering Excellence competition to recognize projects and professional services that demonstrate the highest degree of merit and ingenuity. The selection of the winning projects is based on criteria such as originality and complexity of design, the value of the project to the advancement of the profession, as well as the impact of the project on social, economic and sustainable development.
The HCWSA hired Stantec Consulting Services, one of several consulting engineering firms assisting the authority with its ongoing capital improvements and construction projects, to direct the reservoir plan, design and construction oversight.
The authority broke ground on the reservoir construction in 2003, following a lengthy permitting and mitigation regulatory process. In October 2005, the authority officially closed the gates on the reservoir’s main dam to begin the process of filling the lake. Depending on seasonal rainfall amounts and the required continuous flow of water downstream, the reservoir should be filled—to a level that allows for withdrawal—later this year.
Water coming from the 1,466-acre reservoir will be pumped to the nearby Tussahaw water treatment facility for drinking water production and distribution. The Tussahaw Water Production Plant, upon completion, will provide 13 mgd for the customers of the HCWSA. The plant has been designed with the potential to expand its capacity to 26 mgd, if necessary, to accommodate future customer growth. Currently, the HCWASA is adding drinking water customers to its system at a rate of approximately 4,000 accounts per year.
The HCWSA and Stantec Consulting Services will be recognized for this engineering excellence by the GEA at its annual awards event, to be held in Atlanta Feb. 25, 2006.
Source: HCWSA
