City of Abilene Second Stage Drought Response Project

CLIENT: City of Abilene
LOCATION: Abilene, TX

eHT provided planning, design, permitting, project management, construction management, resident inspection and O&M services for this project valued at $105 million. The Hamby Indirect Reuse Project augmented the City’s raw water supply in Lake Fort Phantom Hill; however, the raw water augmentation only offset approximately 25 percent of the City’s daily water demands. The need for a second stage drought response strategy was recognized by City leadership. eHT was tasked to identify and develop the design for necessary improvements to utilize brackish raw water from Possum Kingdom (PK) Lake and desalinate the PK raw water to a sufficient level to match raw water quality from Hubbard Creek Reservoir (Hubbard). Since the City had been forced to reduce raw water usage from Hubbard due to the ongoing drought, the water from PK could be used instead. The project goals included upgrading the existing PK Intake Pump Station owned by the Brazos River Authority, construction of approximately 42 miles of raw water, product water and concentrate pipelines, and the construction of a Raw Water Roughing Facility (RWRF), designed to desalinate raw PK water prior to being sent to Abilene for final, conventional water treatment.

The treatment systems ultimately selected were based on required construction footprint, capital and O&M cost, operational flexibility, lead time for construction and capability of meeting treatment goals for TDS, chloride, sulfate and hardness. The City’s RWRF includes raw water pumping, transmission and storage, a new pretreatment MF system to protect the new RO system, a tertiary recovery MF system to enhance net MF recovery, RO treatment for dissolved mineral reduction, chloramine disinfection to maintain positive bio-fouling control, product water storage, pumping and transmission and RO concentrate waste transmission and disposal. Also included in the scope of the project was a TPDES discharge permit for the City for a new permitted discharge to Possum Kingdom Reservoir for disposal