Brandenburg Kentucky P3 Wastewater Treatment Plant
The City of Brandenburg, KY's wastewater treatment plant is the first local government Public-Private Partnership (P3) project in the state of Kentucky and is being constructed on land adjacent to the existing wastewater treatment plant. Nucor steel purchased the land where the existing plant is located in order to provide a buffer area to their new $1.7 billion steel facility, which is also enabling the City to address their Agreed Order with the Kentucky Division of Water with a brand new treatment plant.
Prior to the start of this project GRW completed a Facilities Plan for the plant, and had begun the design of upgrades to an existing plant for Brandenburg. After a majority of the design was complete, GRW was required to design an entirely new WWTP with expanded capacity because of the new Nucor $1.7 billion steel production facility in the service area.
Based on the need to have the new WWTP built and in operation to accommodate the Nucor schedule, the traditional design-bid-build approach added too much time. Therefore, using laws that allow local government entities to partner with the private sector, including financial partners, the City issued a Request for Proposals for a Public Private Partnership (P3) to design, build, and finance a new plant. Partnering with GRW as the design firm, the successful bidder was W Principles – a design and construction firm, WP3 Consulting, and Ross Sinclaire & Associates who provided financing with Kentucky League of Cities Financial Services and Kentucky Bond Corporation (KBC).
To complete the project during a pandemic and its lingering effects, while employing the first local government P3 delivery method, required strategic planning. With GRW and the other project partners working collaboratively to resolve potential problems, those impacts were managed effectively. According to former Meade County Judge Executive Leslie Stith, the expansion of the plant capacity “is an asset as we recruit other companies to join us and increase opportunities for the people of Brandenburg and Meade County.”
The new 0.5 MGD average daily flow (1.5 MGD peak rated flow) plant will consist of mechanical fine screening, grit removal, a concentric-ring oxidation ditch (Evoqua Orbal), a splitter box to two circular clarifiers, a disinfection contact basin utilizing peracetic acid for disinfection, a RAS/WAS/drain pump station, scum pump station, aerated sludge holding, a screw press for dewatering solids, a new electrical building, and an emergency generator. The project also includes upgrades to the existing main pump station at the City’s Riverfront Park, and entails four new pumps, the hydraulic connection of two wet wells with a 16-inch pipe, and a new platform holding an emergency generator and pump controls to raise the equipment out of the 100-year flood plain.