Challenge

The City of Detroit’s Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) needed to upgrade its infrastructure by replacing aging transmission lines and mains as well as facilities that had reached the end of their service.

Solution

Part of the solution involved building the new Water Works Park II Treatment Plant.  The fully automated 240-million-gallon-a-day (MGD) drinking water treatment plant along the Detroit River will replace a facility built in 1924 on the same site.

Siemens Water Technologies supplied screens, plate separators and rectangular sludge collectors for the new plant.  Chlorination systems from Wallace & Tiernan Products are being used at Detroit’s other water treatment plants, as well as at the wastewater treatment plant.

At Water Works Park II, raw water from the Detroit River passes through coarse wire mesh traveling screens. 

Next, the water is clarified in parallel plate separators:

• Zimpro Products produced 304 “plate packs” in just 26 weeks
• The 304-stainess-steel-framed clusters of separator plates are installed in concrete basins, and used 15,000 pounds of fasteners, 48 miles of fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP) sheet, 240 miles of FRP channel and 1.25 million pounds of stainless steel 

Then, twenty-four rectangular sludge collectors equipped with non-metallic chain were supplied and mounted beneath the separators to manage sludge removed from the raw water.

Results

The infrastructure projects will have a major impact on Detroit’s future economic health.  One hundred and twenty five communities now receive their water service from DWSD, and 76 communities receive wastewater service.  Hundreds of large industrial users such as soft drink, meat packing, microelectronics and automotive companies are benefiting from even better quality, reliability and service.