Diane Altland has been a trusted advisor to the Canonsburg Houston Joint Authority (CHJA) providing services ranging from day-to-day consulting and planning to turn-key project design and construction management for over two decades. Serving as Authority Manager, to Consultant, to Project Manager with GPI, to now performing these services under her own firm, Rosewood Tower Consulting, LLC.

Our team, working in conjunction with the Canonsburg-Houston Joint Authority (CHJA) and its stakeholders performed a sewage planning study through which it was determined the need to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant to accommodate growth in the five communities that make up the Authority’s service area.

The Plan accounted for 25-year population projections in the 5 communities tributary to the CHJA; Canonsburg Borough, Houston Borough, Cecil Township, Chartiers Township, and North Strabane Township.

A conservative approach was taken to provide the necessary upgrades to account for the growth over a long period of time as to not burden the current user base. The upgrades to the interceptor lines, pump stations, and wastewater treatment plant were phased to allow for the current issues to be solved, to see the effects from inflow and infiltration removal projects in the five communities, and to increase capacity as the additional growth in the service area was realized.

Construction of the plant upgrades occurred in phases over a 14-year period with project costs totaling over $65M. In that time, the CHJA’s customer base doubled, and the plant capacity was increased from 4 MGD to 8.4 MGD average daily flow, with a peak flow capacity of 28 MGD. The upgrades that were designed will allow growth in the community through 2045 without the addition of extra treatment capacity.

Construction on Phase 1 of the project began in 2016, and plant optimization and construction completed in 2018. The Phase 1 upgrades included construction of a new raw sewage pump station at the treatment plant to transfer flow from the five communities to the new headworks building. The pump station is equipped with three smaller pumps and two larger pumps to handle the wet weather flows. The headworks building has three bar screens, screening and grit washer and three vortex grit removal units. Three primary clarifiers were constructed after the headworks. All new facilities were built to handle the 8.4 MGD average daily flow. In addition, there was a new electrical service added to the plant and a new emergency generator.

The Phase 2 effort was divided into two overall contracts to streamline project management and financial administration. The General Construction involved the construction of a new Bio-tower Pump Station, Clarifier Pump Station, two 130-foot diameter Secondary Clarifiers, and a UV Disinfection System and Building. The Electrical Construction involved the installation of all power and control wiring, installation of motor control centers, and configuration of SCADA system for the entire plant. The SCADA system monitors and controls all major plant processes such as influent flow, effluent flow, pump operations, UV transmittance and provide automated control and alarms.

Rosewood Tower currently manages plant operations for the CHJA. Our team is on-site daily to handle administration, general day-to-day activities, and other related matters of a technical nature. Rosewood Tower is responsible for developing and implementing Standard Operating Procedures and preparing work orders for the staff to keep the WWTP operational and functioning at a high-level.

Rosewood Tower develops maintenance schedules, capital improvement plans for the plant, pump stations, and interceptor sewers. We administer contracts including but not limited to sludge handling, chemical supply and delivery, and polymer supply and delivery. Rosewood Tower addresses all regulatory compliance issues including but not limited to correspondence with PaDEP, influent and effluent testing, NPDES DMR reports, and Form 43 Analysis. Our team is available and on-call 24/7 to address any and all plant emergencies and to troubleshoot emergent issues.