The Niagara County Water District (NCWD) retained Wendel to provide multi-disciplined engineering and architectural services to address the NCWD’s needs, improve the efficiency of their operations, and reduce costs at their 24 MGD Williams Road Water Treatment Plant.

Wendel completed a renovation of six of the plant’s 25’ by 29’dual media filters, replacing the original clay-tile underdrain with Dual/Parallel HDPE underdrain with air/water backwash capabilities.  The new system improved backwash performance and reduced the volume of backwash water used, but also allow the District to increase the depth of anthracite by 6-inches as filter gravel is not required with the new underdrain system.

The existing layout of the plant’s pipe gallery did not allow a direct path of plumbing of the air header to the underdrain. Wendel, working closely with the health department, developed a  construction method to supply air to the new underdrain compliant with regulation regulations that prohibit any piping passing vertically through the filter media.

Wendel also engineered improvements to the control system for the filters, incorporating new blowers and associated air/water backwashing protocol into the existing plant SCADA system.

As part of the ongoing filter underdrain project, Wendel analyzed NCWD’s historical records to identify possible correlations between raw water quality (UV-254, turbidity, etc.) and filter performance. Recent projects completed by Wendel include the development of a district hydraulic computer model and energy efficiency study, coagulation basin rehabilitation, residuals lagoon cleaning, CT study, new clearwell pump replacements, and installation of new chemical building containing new fluoride, corrosion inhibitor and coagulant chemical feed equipment.