Showcase Projects
Lake Pleasant Water Treatment Plant
Phoenix, AZ

Bringing water to the fast-growing Valley of the Sun has become something of a University tradition. We have constructed, maintained, or repaired numerous water and wastewater treatment facilities, among them the City of Phoenix 23rd Avenue and 91st Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant Expansions, Scottsdale Water Campus, the Scottsdale Central Arizona Project Treatment Plant Expansion, and the Val Vista Water Treatment Plant Expansion.

The tradition is continuing with University's participation in the design and construction of the first phase of the Lake Pleasant Water Treatment Plant. The City of Phoenix is bringing this major, new facility online in anticipation of explosive growth in the city's far northern frontier, which will be transformed from empty desert into subdivisions totaling as many as 300,000 households over the next two decades. That kind of growth translates into a huge need for clean water, so the Lake Pleasant WTP is being designed to have an initial capacity of 80 mgd and an ultimate capacity of 320 mgd.

Although the typical water-industry approach to project delivery is design-bid-build, Phoenix has selected an innovative design-build-operate delivery method for the Lake Pleasant WTP. Functioning as the All-American Team, University, Black & Veatch, McCarthy Constructors, and American Water Services will provide the full scope of services for the project. As part of our commitment to high-level communication and continuity among all of the players, the All-American Team has established a team office in Phoenix. Thus we will all be right in the middle of the action all of the time, enhancing close coordination not only among the team members, but with the Phoenix Water Services Department.

Working smoothly together is old hat for the team, as this project reunites University with Black & Veatch and McCarthy - two firms with which we've teamed previously to complete other major water projects in the Phoenix area.

In addition to selecting a non-traditional project-delivery method, Phoenix is breaking ground in another way as well. For the first time in its history, the city is privatizing a water facility's operation, with American Water Services slated to run the Lake Pleasant WTP until the plant's eventual turnover to the city.

With a scant one year to work through the design and permitting process, University is providing design-assist services to the engineer and general contractor. Our early input on constructability issues will help ensure an efficient, cost-effective approach.

Once the design-permit phase is completed, University will provide full mechanical services for the project. Our crews will install all of the process piping for the plant's chemical and disinfection systems, as well as filter piping, solids-handling system piping and equipment, and the piping related to taste, odor, and organics removal. We also will install piping for the ozone and UV systems, construct the carbon regeneration facility, and install the basic mechanical systems for the facility's visitor center.

The Lake Pleasant WTP's first phase is scheduled to be delivering water to desert-dwellers by February 2007.

The Lake Pleasant All-American Team:
Facility operator: American Water Services
General contractor: McCarthy Constructors
Architect/engineer: Black & Veatch
Mechanical contractor: University Mechanical & Engineering Contractors
University project manager: Tom Gusich

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