Parsons was selected by the city of Tulare, Calif., to provide design and engineering services for a new $40 million industrial wastewater treatment plant. The new plant will treat wastewater from the production of dairy products such as cheese, butter, and ice cream and will have a capacity of 12 million gallons per day.
"Parsons was selected from a group of highly qualified firms to design our new plant because of the depth of experience in the state-of-the-art treatment technologies that they brought to the table," said Lew Nelson, Tulare Public Works director. Treatment of this high-strength wastewater requires specialized features such as fat, oil, and grease (FOG) removal and/or high-rate anaerobic pretreatment, a sequencing batch reactor (SBR), sludge dewatering, and mesophilic digesters. Stringent nitrogen and electrical conductivity (EC) requirements for final effluent also create major challenges on the treatment process selection.
"We are excited to be working with the city of Tulare on this project," stated Richard Trembath, Parsons Southwest Division manager. "The expanded treatment capacity will allow Tulare to attract new businesses to the region and will help the city meet its discharge requirements."
The final effluent will be used for much-needed agricultural irrigation. An additional benefit to the city is that biogases resulting from high-rate anaerobic pretreatment and digesters can be used for heat and power generation.
The new plant will be located adjacent to the existing municipal wastewater treatment facility. Construction is to be completed by October 2009. In addition to the $22 million that will be spent on the plants, the Defense Department will spend $3.3 over the next two years to environmental restoration projects in Maryland. One of the issues to be addressed will be storm water runoff at bases.
Source: Parsons
