Fulton County Department of Public Works

Technology and outreachAs Keith Regan learns from the deputy director of the Fulton County (Georgia) Department of Public Works, the Johns Creek Environmental Campus will serve a growing community, protect the environment and blend into the surrounding neighborhood. When it comes to stirring up not-in-my-backyard sentiment, few things bring on neighborhood outcry quite the way wastewater treatment facilities can.  When Fulton County, Georgia, needed additional wastewater treatment capacity, the Department of Public Works initially set out to expand an existing facility, the Johns Creek Water Pollution Control Plant. That facility is nestled on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, and in the years since it was built, an upscale community known as Horseshoe Bend had been built nearby. The county soon began a search for an alternative location, one that would come with fewer impacts on residential areas. The result is an innovative project known as the Johns Creek Environmental Campus, a project that not only addresses the concerns of residents with its aesthetic appearance but also leverages cutting-edge technology to create cleaner water, and it has an educational and recreational component as well. Set on 43 acres adjacent to the Chattahoochee, the facility will be capable of processing 15 million gallons of water per dayÔÇötwice what the existing plant can handleÔÇöwhile producing reusable quality water and helping to keep the river clean. Passersby probably wonÔÇÖt recognize the site as a wastewater treatment plant when itÔÇÖs completed. During the pre-design outreach, community residents asked for a building that fit with the areaÔÇÖs architecture and history. The result is a brick-faced mill-building fa├ºade that encloses the facility on three sides. The view of the plant is also protected from nearby high-end housing developments by earthen berms and extensive landscaping. Making the projectÔÇÖs benefits and community friendliness possible is the technology used to treat the wastewater, says Paul Williams, deputy director and contract administrator for the DPW. The Membrane Biological Reactor (MBR) facility utilizes a special process that uses membranes, producing cleaner effluent while also eliminating parts of the traditional wastewater treatment processes that drive the size and scale of such facilities. ÔÇ£A traditional plant requires clarifiers, large vessels that require a huge capital investment and are simply too big in terms of the footprint that they lay down,ÔÇØ Williams says. ÔÇ£MBR eliminates some of those steps in the process and allows for the facility to have a much smaller footprint and lower profile.ÔÇØ The technology being used at Johns Creek is Zenon MBR, produced by a subsidiary of General Electric. The MBR will also produce water that can be reused for irrigation and other purposes.Using the MBR approach enabled the DPW to address some of the concerns of neighbors that came out during a lengthy pre-design process that involved focus groups and community meetings. ÔÇ£They told us they wanted it to blend into the environment and not look at all like a traditional wastewater facility,ÔÇØ Williams says. A third key design element came from former county commissioner Bob Fulton, who believed the site could also have an educational component. The campus will include an educational building and trails through the site aimed at offering programs for local students on the importance of water treatment and the environmental impacts. All those elements came together under the planning guidance provided by The Architect Group, with lead design engineer Brown & Caldwell receiving support from firms such as Metcalf & Eddy, Long Engineering and SL King. After an RFP process, Archer Western was chosen as the lead contractor for the modified design-build project.The environmental permitting of the plant went smoothly, Williams says, because regulatory stakeholders were involved in the process from the earliest stages as well. ÔÇ£They were invited to be part of the RFP and focus group process, so regulators were familiar with the project as it came through the pipeline, and when it came time to actually submit to the environmental review, it was much smoother.ÔÇØ Though some ledge was found on the site that required blasting during the excavation part of the work, there have been few construction surprises or glitches, according to Williams. There was some community outreach required once excavation work began, though, because the procurement process had taken longer than expected, meaning many of the residents had not been in the area when the first outreach program took place. ÔÇ£The folks we had spoken to two years before werenÔÇÖt the same people who live in the area now, so we had to go in and address that, but in terms of actual construction, everything seems to be moving along smoothly,ÔÇØ he notes. Even before the Johns Creek Environmental Campus is completedÔÇöconstruction stood at about 40 percent complete early in the summer of 2008, with the project on track for a late-2009 completion date, followed by a 120-day startup and testing window during which the plant must meet contractual operating thresholdsÔÇöFulton County is already at work on a second project. The DPW is also considering using the Zenon MBR technology at that site, where an existing facility will be upgraded in a $250 million project now about 60 percent through the design process.┬á ÔÇ£The fact that you get water clean enough for beneficial reuses is a major plus, so I see this as a technology that is going to be used more going forward,ÔÇØ Williams says. At Johns Creek, the plant will be able to treat twice as much water as the existing facility but will actually result in less pollution being discharged into the river. ÔÇ£The benefits are considerable, the costs are not that much higher, and theyÔÇÖre already starting to come down. I think more projects will take a look at it.ÔÇØ┬á