Bull Shoals, Arkansas WWTP wins ACEC Engineering Excellence Award

The Lakeside E.A. Aerotor Plant at Bull Shoals, Arkansas, won the Top Project award in the Water and Wastewater Category of the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Arkansas Engineering Excellence Awards.

Designed by independent consulting engineer Mike Marlar P.E. to blend in with the appealing local landscape, the Lakeside E.A. Aerotor Plant at Bull Shoals incorporates all the components of a large scale, extended aeration/complete mix process in conjunction with final clarification and ultraviolet light (UV).

Lakeside’s agent in North Little Rock, Shupe & Associates, worked with Mike Marlar and the treatment plant team throughout the upgrade.

Through excellent teamwork, the seeding process proved very successful, with clear treated water within 24 hours.

The old plant, designed for 20 years but still running after 40, had begun to resemble more of a rusty patchwork quilt, but due to the hard work of the team at Bull Shoals, had continued to give out good quality effluent.

In an area that attracts large numbers of visitors for the fishing of world-class White River trout, the new plant now blends in to the point that many aren’t aware of it. It doesn’t make as much noise as the old plant did, and the new lighting provides a safe work area, without being intrusive to the local environment.

According to The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Bull Shoals’ fishery is worth (annually) $705 million. And when taking into consideration all the other visitor spending factors such as food, lodging and transportation, that figure rises to $1.5 billion each year for Arkansas. The largest lake in The Natural State, with 45,440 acres of water and a 1,000-mile shoreline, Bull Shoals Lake stretches along Arkansas's northern border and into southern Missouri.