Overview
The Illinois American Water Company (ILAWC) owns and operates the East St. Louis (ESL) Water Treatment Facility (WTF), a surface water facility that utilizes Mississippi River as its source water and distributes potable water to East St. Louis, Illinois and several neighboring communities. The plant operations suffer due to an excess of sand and grit in the source water so an evaluation of several different options for improving the Plant’s grit removal process (to remove 65% or greater of solids from the Raw River Water prior to reaching the plant’s sedimentation basins) was deemed necessary.
This evaluation includes the assessment of the existing grit removal equipment and building for reuse with the existing grit equipment or with a modified pre-treatment technology and the evaluation of an entirely new building to house the pre-treatment equipment. Horner & Shifrin will evaluate the 20 yr. life cycle cost of the available treatment systems to confirm they are economically justified going forward. The assessment included detailed process, mechanical, structural, electrical and HVAC reviews. This steel framed block and brick structure and the enclosed steel process and equipment and piping was experiencing severe visible corrosion due to process equipment overflows, high moisture levels and lack of maintenance. The evaluation will culminate in a Design Basis Memorandum to present estimated costs and advantages/disadvantages of each alternative in order to determine a final grit removal recommendation.
Once the Design Basis Memorandum was completed and a treatment direction is decided, Horner & Shifrin provided a complete design of the proposed plant improvements as well as assisted in bidding and construction administration of the new pre-sedimentation project.
