F.B. Leopold Co. has won the contract to provide a wastewater treatment plant upgrade in Washington, DC. This project is the company's largest single tertiary filtration upgrade in its 80 years of service to the water and wastewater industry.
The contract was awarded by the District of Columbia Water & Sewer Authority (DC WASA) for the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant and entails furnishing, installing and placing into successful operation the complete filtration system for the Phase 1 filter upgrade.
Leopold, along with its contracting partners Archer Western Contractors of Sandston, VA; C&E Services of Washington; Langley Traffic Services of Trevose, PA; and Duffield Hauling of King George, VA, is scheduled to begin the project in early 2004 and to complete it by mid-2007.
The project will provide the Blue Plains Plant with a filtration system incorporating air-water backwash. Leopold will rehabilitate 40 dual bay filters totaling 80 filter cells with each cell measuring 52 ft. x 20 ft., for a total filter area of 83,200 square feet. The plant's average flow capacity exceeds 390 mgd with a peak capacity of 850 mgd.
The job includes demolition of existing filter equipment; concrete repair; installation of the company's Universal® Type S® Underdrain with IMS® (Integral Media Support) Cap, media and an air header piping system; removal of existing wash water troughs and replacement with 560 FRP (fiberglass reinforced plastic) troughs plus other miscellaneous items. The filter rehabilitation will replace existing media with 4,333 tons of anthracite from Leopold's Anthracite Processing Facility in Watsontown, PA, and 4,550 tons of silica sand.
In addition to an extensive underdrain testing protocol, one of the latest tools in filtration design, CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamic) modeling, will be employed to verify proper flow characteristics within the filter system prior to the rehabilitation of the filter.
"We are pleased to have been chosen for the upgrade at the Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant and equally pleased at the confidence placed in Leopold by the DC Water and Sewer Authority," said Mike Ulizio, president of Leopold.
