MWH was the CMAR tasked with constructing a new 50 million gallons per day (MGD) water treatment plant, expandable to 300 MGD, which for this scope of the project alone was $172M. In addition to this scope, MWH built the raw water system which included a 300 MGD submerged raw water intake in Lake Travis, a raw water conveyance to the pump station by a mile long, 9-footdiameter tunnel, a 50 MGD raw water pump station with five 1500 HP vertical turbine pumps to deliver water from Lake Travis to WTP 4, and a finished water conveyance via tunnel, connecting WTP 4 to the existing reservoir at Jollyville by a 7-mile-long, 7-foot diameter pipeline. The project included a media gravity filtration facility featuring six dual media filter basins, a flocculation and sedimentation facility, a baffled chlorine contact chambers facility, SCADA, telemetry and instrumentation systems, and chemical storage and feed systems. Over 88% of the 250 subcontracts were awarded to local minority-owned or women-owned contractors and vendors.
As the CMAR, MWH worked with three separate design firms throughout the preconstruction process to address the City’s needs. It was critical to begin tracking the project against the City’s budget as soon as it began, as the City was concerned with the budget for the proposed design. By the end of the project, MWH prepared 14 GMPs for the City, ensuring the team successfully designed to budget, allowing the City of Austin to make real-time cost decisions. This process also helped reduce and eliminate redesign costs.
MWH recommended more than $75M in cost reductions, $30M of which were accepted. We made design modifications to the raw water intake foundation that saved an estimated $2M, which was recognized with an award by the Texas Council of Engineering Companies.
We found the biggest challenge for this project was keeping the design agreed upon within the City’s budget. MWH tracked the budget on an ongoing basis throughout the design process to allow the City to make real-time cost decisions on the design to maintain budget. MWH held multiple VE sessions and constructability reviews to save money and time. MWH realized time savings of30 days by preparing early site packages, allowing construction to begin six months earlier than expected.
"At a total cost of over $500 million, this is one of the largest projects the City has completed to date and all work was completed within 1% of the targeted budget, which was established over 10 years ago. The partnership formed among the City, MWH, and the design team under a CMAR arrangement allowed challenges to be identified early and solutions developed without impact to the project’s scope."
The MWH Breckenridge Conference featured 13 insightful presentations, recognizing standout contributions in engineering, innovation, and project leadership. Two teams were selected to join Obayashi’s training program in Tokyo.
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Earlier this year, the City of Saco selected MWH as the Construction Manager At-Risk for the $50M Water Resource Recovery Facility Upgrade project. The project consists of a new treatment building with aerobic granular sludge treatment processes, secondary filtration, and UV disinfection with upgraded grit removal and solids handling, as well as the conversion of existing clarifiers for additional stormwater storage and site grading alterations to mitigate tidal flooding from the adjacent Saco River.
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After a year of meticulous planning and excited anticipation, MWH’s Phoenix Team moved into their new office on June 1, 2023. Let’s take a look around!
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