The Regional Municipality of York (York Region) in Southern Ontario supplies drinking water to the City of Vaughan through the York Water System. The northeast section of Vaughan is a designated “white belt” area within York Region, accommodating provincially-approved population growth.

The existing water and wastewater systems are unable to accommodate the projected population growth. As a result, the Region established water and wastewater servicing areas to help identify the additional infrastructure needed to service the area’s anticipated needs to the year 2051. 

The Northeast Vaughan water service area is located approximately from the King-Vaughan town boundary line to Teston Road and from Highway 27 to Dufferin Street. The preferred water servicing solution for this area consists of four main components: 

• Teston Road Pumping Station: a 33.5 million litres per day pumping station with a connection to the existing 1800 millimetre York-Peel Feedermain on Teston Road to supply water to new elevated water tanks 
• Jane Street Elevated Tank and Pumping Station: an 8.5 million litre elevated water storage tank and 3.8 million litre per day pumping station – a combined facility located on the same site 
• King Vaughan Elevated Tank: an 8.5 million litre elevated water storage tank, and
• Additional watermains to provide inter-connectivity between the pumping and storage facilities.

Associated Engineering is serving as the prime consultant, delivering studies, detailed design, and construction administration services. Project Manager, Andrew Moreton, tells us, “We’ve completed a Climate Change Adaptation study for the project. The report focuses on the environmental impacts of the various components of the project, their climate resiliency, and adaptation, resilience, and mitigation measures. Recommendations included methods to reduce construction emissions, voluntary emissions and energy reporting during construction and operation, and Envision Accreditation (decision is pending).”

Work completed to-date include permits and approvals, an addendum to the Municipal Class Environmental Assessment, utility coordination, and detailed design. Pre-qualification and tendering is ongoing for sections of the overall project. Andrew tells us, “So far, we’ve encountered a few challenges, including modifications to construction to limit impact to commercial developments being built and connecting to the York-Peel Feedermain, which is the main water feed into York Region from the adjacent Region of Peel.” 

As part of the Environmental Assessment Addendum, we entered into a Knowledge Exchange with Curve Lake First Nation. Andrew explains, “The project has opened up the opportunity for the Curve Lake First Nation to collaborate with the York Region on a more strategic level.”

The project also involves extensive internal and external stakeholder coordination. Andrew shares, “There are a large number of internal stakeholders within the Region, as we are constructing both facilities and linear works.” In addition, developers want to move forward with their projects. The Region has signed an advance construction agreement which accelerated the construction of two of the contracts, which has changed project delivery.

Over 100 staff from across the company are involved on this project. Key staff include Andrew Moreton, Brandon Gorr, Cian McDermott, Axel Ouillet, Thomas Siuda, Marina Vera Zambrano, Dusan Fil, David Holyer, and Paul Shi. 

The post York Region’s new water servicing helps meet growth needs in Northeast Vaughan first appeared on Associated Engineering.

The Shaganappi Pump Station is the largest and most critical of the City of Calgary’s 42 drinking water pump stations. The facility provides safe and reliable drinking water to over 200,000 citizens in Calgary’s North Hill and Glendale Pressure Zones in the city’s northwest as well as critical institutions such as the Foothills Hospital and the University of Calgary. 

The original Shaganappi Pump Station was constructed in 1977, serving Calgary for many decades. In later years, the pump station began to experience mechanical and structural issues. An investigation determined that replacing the pump station would be more cost effective and efficient than repairing or rebuilding the facility in its original location.

In 2015, the City of Calgary retained Associated Engineering to assist in site selection, and provide design and construction services for a new pump station. The selected site for the new pump station was a City-owned greenspace adjacent to the Bow River. The site was chosen primarily for its proximity to the original pump station and existing large diameter water feedermains, which would facilitate connecting the new pump station to the existing piping. 

Since the new pump station serves established neighbourhoods, the station was designed at its maximum buildout capacity; flows were not anticipated to change due to increased growth and demand. Having extensive operating data from the original station was advantageous, particularly typical pump flows and hydraulics. With this information, the team designed the pumps to achieve their highest efficiency for the most frequent operating conditions, rather than at peak operating conditions, which maximized energy efficiency over the life cycle of the station. The new facility includes three 447 Kilowatt pumps rated at 100 million litres per day and three 447 Kilowatt pumps rated at 30 million litres per day pumping into the North Hill and Glendale Pressure Zones, respectively.

Pumping equipment is housed in a single-storey building, designed as a “post-disaster” structure using resilient materials, such as concrete columns and steel trusses. Given the proximity to the Bow River, the team considered climate change, and revised flood zone mapping available from updated flood modelling. The building was designed to resist flotation.

The new pump station was also designed for ease of use by maintenance and operation staff. An emergency generator was included in the design to facilitate the operation of pumps should the utility electrical supply be interrupted. The site is close to a public park, bicycle path, condominium, and businesses; limiting the impact of noise from the facility on nearby residences and park areas was important. Noise reduction measures included concrete block wall construction, heavy duty noise-cancelling overhead doors, duct silencers on the cooling air intake and exhaust louvers, and a super extreme grade exhaust silencer. 

Project Manager, Andy Barr, advises, “Connecting the new facility to the existing feedermain network was one of the most technically complex aspects of the project. This work needed to be completed in a tight three-month time frame, during the City’s low water demand period, but avoiding the main freeze up period from January to February.” The facility’s 1350 millimetre diameter suction, 1200 millimetre diameter north discharge and 900 millimetre diameter south discharge steel piping from the new station were connected to the existing concrete piping from the old pump station.

To retain the contractor, the City used a Request for Proposal process, rather than conventional tender, to better understand the contractor’s proposed work plan and approach, considering the site constraints, traffic, and public areas. Graham Infrastructure was awarded the construction contract and partnered with Whissell Contracting to complete the underground scope of work.

“This project is an excellent example of how proper planning, clearly defined technical requirements, a solid design, and detailed project execution coupled with collaboration and teamwork can result in successful project delivery. Strong collaboration between our team, the City, contractor, and stakeholders allowed this complex, critical infrastructure project to be delivered with minimal impact to nearby residents and businesses and without interrupting water supply to the citizens of Calgary.”

The post Calgary’s new Shaganappi Pump Station designed for energy efficiency and resilience first appeared on Associated Engineering.

Halton Region is a growing municipality in southwestern Ontario, with a population of approximately 600,000. The Region provides high quality drinking water to residents and businesses, and maintains an active program to continuously improve its drinking water system. 

The Region’s Bailie Booster Pumping Station and Reservoir supply water to the Burlington area. As part of its asset management program, the Region retained Associated to upgrade and rehabilitate the pump station and reservoir. The pumping station upgrades include replacing the plumbing, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, booster pumps and piping/valving, chlorine storage and dosing system, motor control centre, standby power and electrical systems, instrumentation and supervisory control and data acquisition system, along with required structural rehabilitation.

The two-celled, underground, concrete reservoir has a storage capacity of 17.5 million litres. The top of the reservoir is grassed, creating a park like setting. Structural rehabilitation of the reservoir involves removing the existing grass surface and waterproofing system and installing a new hot applied rubberized asphalt waterproofing membrane system on the reservoir roof slabs. After membrane replacement, landscaping over the roof is reinstated. The main goal of the waterproofing replacement is to update the reservoir to meet new potable water storage guidelines and minimize the risk of contaminant infiltration. 

The site drainage design and sizing of the reservoir subdrain system considered climate change and anticipated increased frequency of and heavier precipitation events. More extreme seasonal temperatures and increase in relative humidity were considered in the design of the pump station heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system. All process piping will also be insulated to address expected increase in humidity.

Project Manager, Anna Comerton, tells us, “The upgrades to the pumping station must be staged to allow continued operation of the station, as it is an integral part of the Burlington water supply system and cannot be taken out of service for an extended period.” Interruption or reduction of service must be performed during low demand season to accommodate overall distribution system needs. Careful planning and communication with all stakeholders (e.g. Region Operations and contractor) are required, so that individual equipment is replaced and commissioned in a phased manner and minimizes any impact on operations. For example, we replaced one booster pump and associated piping/valving system at a time.

Similarly, replacing the main reservoir fill/draw header has been done in sections so that the period required for station shutdown is minimized (e.g. less than 24 hours) and occurs during low demand season when an alternate station can handle the demand.

Residences surround the project site on three sides in this quiet neighbourhood. Construction was planned to restrict working hours, mitigate noise and dust, identify location of soil stockpiling, provide privacy screening, limit the number and location of construction vehicles, and prohibit idling trucks on residential streets. The Region also has a project ambassador assisting with communicating updates to the community and addressing questions.

Halton Region engaged Associated Engineering in 2018 to complete preliminary and detailed design and tender the rehabilitation works. Construction began in Spring 2021. The upgrades to the pumping station are in progress and are expected to be completed by early 2023. Cell 1 waterproofing was completed in the Fall 2021, and Cell 2 waterproofing is now in progress. Outside works are anticipated to be completed by Fall 2022.

Key personnel involved on this project include Anna Comerton, Joanne Verstegen, Carlos Baez, Roman Gluzman, Roy Gong, Azad Khamforoush, David Holyer, and Behnood Salehi.

The post Rehabilitation of Bailie Booster Pumping Station and Reservoir safeguards reliability of water supply in Halton Region first appeared on Associated Engineering.