Texas city breaks ground on new water reclamation facility expansion

The City of Pearland, Texas, announced that they have broken ground on the expansion of the Barry Rose Water Reclamation Facility (WRF) replacement and expansion project.

The project will increase the plant’s wastewater treatment capacity from 3.1 MGD to 5 MGD to better address the community’s growing needs.

The $216.7 million construction project expands and updates the 50-year-old Barry Rose Water Reclamation Facility’s infrastructure while also decommissioning the neighboring Longwood WRF, rated at 2.5 MGD, to mitigate the risks of aging infrastructure and increase the city’s wastewater collection and treatment efficiency.

The expansion project is scheduled to be completed in early 2028.

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. was named as the project’s general contractor, serving as the Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR), in partnership with the project’s design engineer Freese and Nichols, Inc. and Ardurra, which is serving as the city’s advisor on the project.

The project is comprised of three phases to accommodate the expansion and redirection flows from Longwood WRF to Barry Rose WRF, without impacting plant operations.

Phase one includes grading and the expansion of Barry Rose’s site drainage, while also establishing a detention pond and constructing the sequential batch reactor (SBR) structure.

Phase two, which is scheduled to begin in January 2025, will focus on the wastewater processing structures at Barry Rose and constructing regional lift station, to replacing the existing Longwood WRF, that will send the plant’s flows to the new Barry Rose WRF.

Phase three, which is slated to begin in May 2025, will include installation of a five-mile force-main pipeline to connect the new Longwood regional lift station to the Barry Rose WRF, followed by start-up and commissioning of the updated facility.

Once flows are transferred, the project team will demolish all remaining outdated Barry Rose WRF and Longwood WRF infrastructure.

The Barry Rose WRF expansion is expected to reach its new treatment capacity in June 2027, with all final demolition and decommissioning of the Longwood WRF completed by early 2028.