CH2M is the prime consultant providing project management and lead process design services for the Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment plant.

Premier Business Partners:

Vector Electric & Controls Whissel Contracting Calgary Maple Reindeers Industrial Electrical Contractors

In recent years, significant growth in the outlying communities near the city of Calgary has placed a strain on wastewater infrastructure, and therefore generated an increase in wastewater flows and loads. With no sign of slowing, population growth has placed pressure on the city to provide additional treatment capacity.

However, because the city is well known for having some of the highest-quality wastewater treatment facilities in Canada, when it embarked on the Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment plant, it had to obtain a project management firm with the expertise to do the job done right.

In 2003, the City retained CH2MHILL to provide design and construction services for the new Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. CH2M is the prime consultant providing project management and lead process design services for the facility. The firm will provide conceptual, functional, detailed design and construction services, as well as commissioning and post-construction services. Other major stakeholders of the project include Stantec, Earth Tech and Graham Edmunds Cartier. The project will be delivered using the traditional design-bid-build method, based on the city’s interest in exercising control over the design and construction of the facility.

“We have a very solid reputation in delivering a great product,” Government Relations Director Tony Petrucci says. “We are tapping into our global expertise to build infrastructure, while minimizing the impact to the environment.”

For more than 85 years, the firm has maintained a commitment to partnering with clients to achieve their full-strategic and operational agendas throughout Canada.

With more than 1,400 staff and 18 project and area offices across Canada, CH2M HILL combines technology, service excellence and customer focus, along with its environmental knowledge, to deliver successful projects to its customers. The Canadian operations serve the energy, water and wastewater, transportation, power, manufacturing and communications industries.

“If we look at our figures, about half our municipal infrastructure business is in water and wastewater infrastructure (the rest in transportation) and the other half of our business in environmental services for private sector clients,” Petrucci notes. “About 60 to 70 percent of our work in Ontario is with municipal water and wastewater infrastructure and the balance in environmental services, nuclear and facilities work for both public and private sector clients.”

The Pine Creek project will provide the city of Calgary with a state-of-the-art 26.5-million-gallon-per-day tertiary wastewater treatment plant. The project is a true showcase of CH2M HILL’s expertise in wastewater management and infrastructure, Petrucci notes.

New Strategies
Calgary’s robust commercial construction market, paired with volatile construction material costs, has limited the contractor bonding capacity and material and labor supply. According to Project Manager Warren Switzer, a unique contracting strategy was developed between CH2M and the city of Calgary midway through the project to alleviate challenges caused by the robust construction market.

“The level of construction in the city of Calgary and province of Alberta has never been as strong as it has been in the past five years or so,” he says. “We’ve had situations where we have tendered contracts and were fortunate if we got two to three general contractors that bid on the job and they would be working the major subcontractors, like mechanical or electrical.”

Because of the busy construction market, Switzer says, subcontractors could easily dictate what prices they were going to charge with little opposition because services and material are in high demand. “It was almost like the subcontractor controlled the market,” he recalls. “The city could see this happening, so they made some fundamental changes at the frontend. We adopted a risk-sharing approach.”

CH2M HILL worked with the city to develop the preferred contracting strategy, cost mitigation measures, and construction packages of significant scale and scope to attract contractors who were well-qualified. The project turn­over deadline was extended by one year to 2008.

“Change was really the theme of this project, and the team adopted an interesting mantra – expect change, embrace it and manage it proactively,” Switzer notes. “This really tested the robustness of our change management process.” The project is 90 percent complete overall and is on schedule to be completed by the year’s end, he says.

Environmentally Sensitive
Lessening the environmental impact of the overall project was a priority. The Pine Creek site is located in a parkland setting adjacent to residential development. To minimize the impact of the facility on air, water and soil, comprehensive environmental site mitigation was undertaken, including a public participation process. Landscaping features including trees and berms, as well as sensitive architecture, will minimize the negative aesthetic impacts on residential communities surrounding the site.

Treated effluent is discharged to the Bow River, an important natural and recreational resource and world-class sport fishery. The location of the facility on the site takes into account the value of the riverbank vegetation. An appropriate development setback from the Bow River will both protect natural habitats and create a natural open space.

The project is seeking LEED gold certification on the operations, maintenance and administration building. The building will include the following features:

• Green roofs;
• Enhanced natural lighting;
• Recycled and low-emitting materials;
• Construction waste management;
• Operational waste management and recycling program;
• Water-efficient design of interior fixtures and landscaping practices; and
• Bicycle storage and changing rooms.

And, because the Pine Creek site encompasses some 300 acres, the site will allow for multiple expansions to increase its capacity, enhance its efficiency and accommodate innovation over the next 50 years, without requiring the addition of surrounding lands.

Advanced Technology
The treatment facility will incorporate advanced, state-of-the-art treatment technologies, including ultraviolet (UV) disinfection and a biological nutrient removal (BNR) process.

The UV disinfection facility will disinfect water flowing from the Pine Creek facility using UV light. This process eliminates the harmful risks involved with the traditional method of chlorination and dechlorination.

The BNR process removes phosphorus and nitrogen from Calgary’s wastewater by using naturally occurring microorganisms instead of chemicals, therefore reducing the amount of chemicals discharged into the Bow River.

A portion of the treated effluent will also be used to irrigate a nearby golf course and tree nursery developments.

In addition, the plant will eventually include a research and public education center. The Calgary Water Centre is a collaborative effort between the city and the University of Calgary and will include a university research facility, visitor interpretive center, and public education areas focusing on water technologies.

The university research component of the center will include a small wastewater treatment plant and up to 12 identical research streams that mimic natural stream flows, riffles and pools.

The research streams will be used to examine the behavior of chemicals and additives often found in streams near urban developments, how the chemicals are transported and where they tend to accumulate.

Work Force Issues
An imbalance between labor supply and demand has placed strain on many contractors and engineers to find qualified labor in Canada.

CH2M HILL has invested in partnerships with its subcontractors, as well as ramped up its recruitment efforts.

“Teaming with our partners and subcontractors has always been a very good strategy for us and we are very careful when we deal with tight labor markets,” Petrucci notes. “We treat them with the utmost respect and we are very careful to identify partners that have similar cultures to us when it comes to project delivery. Our expectations are very clearly identified up front, and both parties have a clear understanding of the working relationship we have here. We have a very formal process here on how we engage subcontractors.”

Managing a major project like the Pine Creek project from conceptual design through to commissioning in Alberta’s overheated economy and construction environment has demanded both flexibility and agility, CH2M HILL says. This year, CH2M HILL connected with Com­munity MicroSkills Development Center, a Toronto-based organization that helps new immigrants and minorities assimilate to the work force, especially in professions in short supply.

“To find professional staff – especially construction management or design staff – has been very difficult and in short supply,” Petrucci says.

“We’re working with [Microskills] to develop a curriculum for the engineering and science professions. We can engage a community-based organization that helps us tap into the qualifications that a lot of these people already have, but are not always recognized.”

In May, Community MicroSkills Development Centre awarded CH2M HILL Canada with the 2008 Corporate Spirit Award. This award was created to honor companies for their support of innovative community programs for immigrants, visible minorities, and low-income women.

The award is given to companies with programs that foster diversity in the workplace and maximize the potential of all employees.

The programs must have a measurable impact on the people for whom they are designed, and must offer potential for significant social and economic community benefits, as well as strengthen the work force and enhance the community where employees work and live.

In addition, CH2M HILL actively recruits at various colleges and universities by hosting internship programs. It also created a young professionals group internally.

“It gives younger employees the chance to create their own steering group, and gives them the opportunity to network and talk about what they would like to see [at the company],” Petrucci notes.