Southerly Water Treatment Plant

The expansion of the Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant was a necessity for the city of Columbus. Aimed to boost treatment capacity by 50%, the addition would also cut sewer overflows and basement backups, as well as improve the quality of water in area rivers and streams. The new system also increased treatment capacity to 330 million gallons per day (MGD), replacing the existing 50-year-old system that only treated 114 MGD.

SME’s team worked closely with Corna Kokosing and Malcolm Pirnie on two phases of the project: S-71 and S-73, a new effluent discharge facility and expansion of the Headworks, respectively. SME’s work on S-71 consisted of construction of four new buildings, an effluent electrical building, remote pump drives, four 300hp pumps, six emergency high level discharge pumps at 650hp a piece, effluent flow rate monitoring equipment, and real time data links with back up for all government regulated monitoring instruments, status and recording support.

SME’s work for S-73 included the installation of four additional Grit tanks and associated pumps, gates, valves, controllers, PLCs, additional grit cyclones and separators, as well as additional screens, presses and discharge screws.

The duration of the $6M combined projects was completed within 20 months and headed by a crew of approximately 25 SME team members.