Clarke County Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrades

Clark County is home to more than two million people, including citizens of its famous county seat, Las Vegas—not to mention the millions of visitors setting out for Vegas each year. That many people means big demand for sanitary water treatment, and the county needed a firm that could more than meet the task.

Harris stepped in and led the recent upgrade of the county's Water Reclamation District facilities, increasing capacity, improving capabilities and ensuring that Clark County residents and travelers don’t have to take a gamble when it comes to water quality.

Harris' services spanned a spectrum and included:

• Staff augmentation
• Construction management
• Lead resident engineering
• Inspection services
• Document control
• RFI, submittal and change-order review and processing
• Cost estimating
• Progress payment review

From rehabilitating existing biofilters to converting the existing advanced water-treatment storage tank to convey potable water, Harris' guidance ensured that no excess expense occurred.

The new expanded and upgraded facilities can now handle an impressive 150 million gallons of wastewater per day, while producing up to 180 dewatered tons of sludge daily—which means residents and visitors alike can rely on the quality of life they’ve come to enjoy.

Core Elements

This $119.2 million project included:

• Construction of a transfer pump station with six progressive cavity pumps
• A five-story solids-dewatering facility housing four screens, three air blowers, two centrifuge feed tanks, 10 centrifuge feed pumps, a polymer feed system, eight centrifuges, four cake storage bins and load-out bays and an odor-control system with two biotowers
• Upsizing the effluent reclaimed water (ERW) line

Beyond the Blueprints

Running mile-long pipelines from the transfer pumps to the solids-dewatering building presented a daunting technical challenge: The pipelines had to carry centrate lines, electrical conduits, a potable water line and a sludge-discharge line. Even more importantly, the Las Vegas wash—which all those pipes would need to cross—had to be preserved.

Harris' solution? We tunneled right under the wash, keeping it pristine to this day.