Horner & Shifrin designed a new wastewater treatment plant to replace a 25-year-old plant serving the cities of Festus and Crystal City, Missouri, for the Festus/Crystal City Sewage Treatment Commission.

The new plant, to be located adjacent to the existing plant on County Road in Crystal City, will bring the Commission into compliance with new, stricter effluent quality requirements and will increase the plant's hydraulic capacity. The new facility will have a design capacity of 3 million gallons per day, and will accommodate the projected population of Festus and Crystal City to the Year 2020.

The new facility will include an influent pump station, headworks structure (with screening and grit removal equipment), and a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) for secondary treatment and nitrogen removal. Waste biosolids will be aerobically digested, dewatered with belt filter presses and land disposed.

A rate study was completed because this project is being partially funded by the Missouri State Revolving Loan program. This study generally updates an existing study to include the costs associated with the administration, operation, maintenance, equipment replacement, loan payments, and other costs associated with the new plant. The study used this expense information to calculate a fair and equitable rate structure for all users, including high strength waste generators.

This project is being coordinated with the Corps of Engineers' proposed flood protection levee in the area adjacent to the new treatment plant. In a unique "partnering" approach, the effluent will discharge to a stormwater pump station being constructed by the Corps as part of the levee project.