The City of Boulder, Colorado, has engaged Brown and Caldwell to provide professional engineering and design services at the City's Betasso Water Treatment Facility (BWTF) to address aging infrastructure and enhance disinfection and corrosion control systems.

Built in 1964 and significantly renovated in 2018, the BWTF is Boulder's primary drinking water treatment facility, with a capacity of 40 million gallons per day (MGD). The conventional surface water treatment plant is located in the foothills west of Boulder. It treats water from North Boulder Creek and Barker Reservoir.

Consistently providing high-level service to water customers, findings from the city's 2019 Asset Inventory and Maintenance Project highlighted various aging and critical components at the BWTF requiring capital repair and replacement, regular maintenance, and improvements to meet the city's level of service goals.

"The city is dedicated to maintaining and improving the quality of life in Boulder by planning for future needs, promoting environmental quality, building and maintaining municipal infrastructure, managing public investments, and protecting health and safety," said City of Boulder Public Works Engineering Services Manager Stephen Grooters. "This important project will play a key role in meeting level of service goals, maintaining a reliable water supply, and preventing infrastructure constraints related to city-wide development, redevelopment, sustainability, and resilience goals."  

The improvements will increase resiliency and enhance redundancy for pH and corrosion control systems, disinfection, backwash supply, and primary facility source water feed piping.

Upon completion, the facility will be equipped with twin 20 MGD treatment trains allowing major infrastructure to be out of commission for future maintenance or emergencies without service interruptions while continuing to meet increasingly stringent regulations.

"We look forward to working with the city and its stakeholders to provide solutions to help maintain a resilient, safe, and reliable water supply that follows industry best practices," said Brown and Caldwell Project Manager Laurie Sullivan.

Construction is scheduled for completion by spring 2024.