As population grows and infrastructure ages, one critical, highly specialized task centers on electrical work at wastewater treatment plants. Providing upgrades and expansions to include new plant pumps, filters and ultraviolet treatment, these companies employ a uniquely trained group of electricians. They work within tight time constraints and in challenging conditions, while ultimately ensuring that operations are never delayed. These ECs are ready to take on growth when and where it’s needed.
Wastewater plants often go unnoticed unless there is a problem. However, thousands of wastewater plants in every part of the country are receiving, managing and treating the water that flows 24 hours a day from homes, businesses and industrial sites. Without the electrical connectivity that keeps these facilities running, and the redundancy necessary to protect against outages, wastewater management would come to a halt.
OEG Inc., Portland, Ore., has a crew of seasoned electrical professionals doing this work. Their projects include expansion, new builds and system replacement throughout the Portland area. Most recently, the company is working in one of the largest wastewater treatment facilities in the state.
Most projects involve existing treatment plants that require renovation to upgrade, said Travis Brinkman, project manager at OEG. The company has a core group of electricians that may spend eight months or more each year assessing, planning and completing renovations with the customer.
Updates on old facilities
If there is any such thing as a typical facility, Brinkman says the water treatment sites are most often about 30 years old and are consistently being maintained while undergoing small renovations. Large upgrades occur about once a decade. Expansions are underway as new homes are built and the plant needs to handle a growing volume of waste. OEG’s team of electricians often remain on a facility site for a year or more for each project.
Some plants have UV systems that disinfect the sludge, while others use more traditional chemical-based methods with waste collected in clarifying tanks.
The number one commonality is the need for redundancy.
Wastewater treatment plants require electricians with specialized training and skill sets.
"You see pretty much twice as much electrical equipment and instrumentation," than that of a less critical project, he said. "You have redundant systems on everything, so every pump seems to have two feeds." If one feed goes down, the facility can then continue its operations.
In most cases, renovation work takes place at an active utility that can’t afford to fully shut down. Enabling work to be done in that environment requires more coordination and planning than a typical project, so any shutdowns are minimal and the work can be done safely. That means the plant first needs to predict when the volume of waste coming in is low. They might plan for work within an 8- or 16-hour window, during which time electricians can get in, do the work and then get the system back online.
Before work starts, facility managers will often drain wastewater levels as low as possible and then shut pumps down for a few hours. As electricians work, the waste levels will naturally rise, so the pressure is on. Once installation is finished, the equipment is switched on "and everything is able to catch back up," Brinkman said.
The electricians often work with heavy equipment to manage the large-scale electrical gear coming in, but this can be difficult when negotiating confined spaces that come with the territory. Such spaces inherently come with strong odors and gases, Brinkman said. Some are so strong that they could cut off necessary oxygen.
According to Brinkman, "When anything is underground, you have to be extra cautious," to ensure no one has breathing problems. Air quality isn’t the only hazard.
Electricians also need strong nerves to work directly over massive, open tanks filled with sludge. They wear harnesses to ensure they don’t fall in while operating on a catwalk over the open tanks—often working on instruments in the middle of the tank. Despite the potential hazards, typical wastewater treatment plants are highly clean sites with specialized equipment designed to combat the worst of any odors. For those who experience even residual smells, "You just you kind of get used to it," Brinkman said.
Stamina and skill
With all the challenges, it takes a certain stamina and skill for those who do the work. Electricians working at these facilities also require instrumentation and controller experience to be able to troubleshoot controls and programmable logic controllers.
PVC conduits routed in a concrete slab
Additionally, Brinkman said, these sites require electricians to work with heavier-duty conduit than typical projects, "and you’re dealing with corrosion-resistant materials." That means handling PVC-coated conduit and stainless steel junction boxes, which are also designed to resist corrosion.
"It takes a special caliber of electrician to know how to bend that conduit and thread it and to work with stainless steel [in such a way that] you’re not burning up a bunch of tools," he said.
The wastewater treatment facility’s electricians maintain existing equipment and excel at the day-to-day efforts, Brinkman said, "but when it comes to building a new system, a construction electrician is much more efficient … whenever you need a new process or new product installed, that’s when you’ll call a construction electrician in to bring the new process online."
About 75% of OEG’s wastewater projects are structured to be led by a general contractor that hires the mechanical contractor for pipe fitting and the EC for hooking up the power.
In the past decade, OEG has completed renovations at multiple sites. In Portland, the Fulton Pump Station—a clean water treatment facility—was replaced in 2018 with general contractor James W. Fowler Co., Dallas, Ore. This project included full electrical installation of the new Hannah Mason pump station building.
Expansion is ongoing
Expansion is ongoing as Portland grows. The Fulton Pump Station, built in 1912 in a single room, has been expanded multiple times to reach its current capacity of 18 million gallons per day.
For OEG, enabling the station to reach this capacity meant wiring a new, cast-in-place concrete building that houses five vertical turbine pumps, piping and isolation; and pressure relief, piping and future regulator valves. It also includes flow meters, electrical controls, plumbing and an HVAC system. In addition, an overhead bridge crane comes with the building for use in pump removal.
The pump station building’s exterior includes a vegetative eco-roof system (also called a green roof), louvers for the HVAC and flood louvers on the ground level. The building features a Pacific Gas & Electric utility equipment room that houses the metering systems and a 480V panelboard. The project also includes the construction of a parks building adjacent to the pump station building that will house four new bathrooms and a storage room.
PVC conduits routed in a concrete slab are hidden after the concrete is poured, resulting in a clean installation.
Another renovation project took place in Tigard, Ore., where OEG provided upgrades for the Durham Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility to help it better serve its expanding population. This facility treats about 26 million gallons of wastewater daily, while serving about 250,000 people in Beaverton, Durham, King City, Sherwood, Tigard and Tualatin, and some portions of Clackamas and Multnomah counties.
For the Tigard renovation, OEG provided electrical installation of a new headworks effluent structure and primary influent piping to manage incoming waste, along with power for chemical feed systems and a biofilter.
OEG assisted with the RV unloading station and demolition of an existing Calvert odor-control system and septage receiving station. The electrical contractor also furnished and installed a dry media scrubber, modified the bisulfite venting and updated the primary sludge pump station. This project was completed in 2016 under general contractor 2KG Contractors Inc., Portland, Ore.
At Oregon’s Oak Lodge Water Reclamation Facility, OEG worked under the leadership of Portland-based general contractor Mortenson Co. The facility was built in two stages, with OEG serving as subcontractor for the second phase. Work included pump station modifications and addition of two secondary clarifiers, an RS pump station and related equipment. OEG also provided electrical building and odor-control system modifications.
In some cases, OEG also has provided specialized solutions. For instance, at the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant, because the plant couldn’t be down for more than four hours at a time—which was longer than OEG’s work would take—the EC rented a dedicated generator.
Control conduits transition from underground PVC to aboveground PVC-coated GRC conduits that will connect the PLC to instruments in the field.
"We would shut down the electrical equipment and hook up this backup generator, start the generator up, while we did all the revisions to the electrical equipment," Brinkman said. They then shut the generator down, turned on the new electrical equipment and got the plant back online.
The most recent project, and one of the largest for OEG, is finishing later this year, at a large wastewater treatment plant in Hillsboro. It was a greenfield (new construction) site, so OEG’s project leadership provided some design-assist support during the early planning. While most of the construction work is completed, a small crew remains as additions and small upgrades are completed.
The projects are likely to continue. Wastewater treatment is something that’s almost recession-proof because people always need it, Brinkman said. "It’s just a consistent supply."
Header image: PVC-coated GRC conduit being installed for a facility electrical room will carry electrical power to items such as pump motors and VFDs. All images courtesy of OEG Inc.
About The Author
SWEDBERG is a freelance writer based in western Washington. She can be reached at [email protected].