Engineering Firm Wins Award for Project Using Cloth Media Filtration
CP&Y, a full-service consulting firm that offers services in the environmental, transportation, transit, aviation and specialty engineering services, recently received one of eight National Grand Awards at the American Council of Engineering Companies National Awards Gala in Washington, D.C. The award recognized the firm's work on the San Antonio Water System’s Dos Rios Water Recycling Center Tertiary Filters Project.
The San Antonio Water System sought to double capacity and replace existing tertiary filters at the Dos Rios Water Recycling Center. Conventional expansion was inefficient and costly. To reduce costs, CP&Y was able to adapt more efficient cloth media technology into the existing structure, doubling capacity within the same footprint by using the AquaDiamond cloth media filter from Aqua-Aerobic Systems, Inc. This filter combines two proven technologies; traveling bridge and cloth media filters. The result is two to three times the flow capacity of a traveling bridge filter within an equivalent footprint. This new design saves over $40 million and reduces water usage by 130 billion gal over the life of the project.
The Dos Rios Water Recycling Center is at the heart of the nation’s largest direct recycle water delivery system, and filtration is the single most critical step before recycling. The sustainable and unique approach makes the project the first-of its-kind and will aid other utilities in retrofitting similar facilities, with potential savings in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The Dos Rios Water Recycling Center is now the world’s largest diamond cloth media filter installation, and the first to retrofit using a front-to-back arrangement.
The Engineering Excellence Awards Competition has been held by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Texas since its inception in 1975 to honor and recognize outstanding achievements within the engineering community. The distinguished panel of judges from around the state selected 11 Gold Medal and six Silver Medal winning projects from 21 entries based on uniqueness, originality, technical, value to the engineering profession, complexity and how successfully the project met the needs of the client.