It All Flows Together

Summary

Summary

Burns & McDonnell worked as part of a design-build team to provide design and construction services for a new, 0.75 million-gallon-per-day (MGD) wastewater treatment facility in Cave Creek, Arizona. We designed 2.8 miles of sanitary sewer force main, 1.5 miles of gravity sewer, 4.3 miles of reuse waterline, and 2.4 miles of potable waterline.

Our scope of work included examining three alternative alignments and making a recommendation based on construction cost, operational costs, right-of-way and easement challenges, environmental impacts, and public perception.

The alignments examined included challenges such as going through a privately held land trust, tearing up the main street in Cave Creek, installing a pipeline in the right-of-way of a busy county highway, installing a pipeline through a floodplain, numerous easement requirements, existing utilities, and installing pipe in shallow bedrock.

The design-build approach was instrumental in meeting each of these challenges. The design-build team worked closely throughout the design process to minimize easements and select alignments that would limit disruption to the public, while still providing a cost-effective solution. Our team potholed existing utilities during the design phase so that we had a comprehensive understanding of utility locations. We supplemented this approach with additional locates during the construction phase, which dramatically increased pipeline installation production. As a result of these collaborative efforts, our team was able to reduce the project cost by $4 million.