City of Houston Houston, Texas, United States
Meeting drinking water needs for the nation’s fourth largest city
Increasing Houston’s Water Treatment Capacity
Alberici is constructing the dewatering building and thickened sludge equalization basins for a major expansion of the City of Houston’s Northeast Water Purification Plant (NEWPP). The expansion program will add 320 million gallons per day to the existing plant’s capacity, allowing the City to meet projected demands for potable water while fulfilling requirements to shift from groundwater to surface water.
Three-Story Dewatering Building
The dewatering building is a three-story structure housing centrifuges and associated systems that remove liquid from sludge slurry created by the water treatment process. Alberici is installing key ancillary systems including sludge feed pumps, a polymer feed system, a dewatered sludge conveyor system, centrate collection and conveyance, slurry conveyance, and electrical and mechanical systems.
Thickened Sludge Equalization Basins
Alberici is constructing three sludge basins which receive and store sludge from the plant’s gravity thickeners and slurry from the dewatering centrifuges. The two large basins feature four paddle mixers and the middle basin has two paddle mixers. The basins are connected by an elevated walkway system.
Meeting Critical Milestones through Self-Perform Steel Fabrication
Construction began while structural steel design was still in progress, allowing zero float in the schedule for critical structural work. To help meet schedule requirements, Hillsdale Fabricators, an Alberici Enterprise, fabricated 725 tons of structural steel in our St. Louis based fabrication facility. During the fabrication process, Alberici coordinated closely with the structural engineers to finalize the design, allowing for on-schedule delivery.