RC115 NovDec 2024 - Magazine - Page 32
WATER INFRASTRUCTURE
Strachan adds that getting all the partners to commit to the 昀椀nal
budget of $81.5 million “was pretty unique. We were committing
to the price of the project with a lot less information than typical
delivery methods,” he says. “The reason for that is there’s an
intense phase of collaboration where even though the design has
not progressed to the same level of detail as it normally would,
there’s a greater understanding because everyone’s involved.”
Once validated, which took an estimated eight months, the team
then “went through the detailed design and we were able to look
at a lot of e昀케ciencies [and] ways to simplify structures,” observes
Strachan, while at the same time posing such questions as “How can
we purpose di昀昀erent parts of the treatment to do multiple things?”
Navigating bumps along the runway
Remarkably, during the validation process ISL’s Wilner pushed for
a design change.
The added cost was brought on by the need to design for an
alternative discharge of in昀氀uent for the wastewater treatment
facility over concerns expressed by the plant manager of
hydrocarbons getting stuck to the coarse screens of the membrane
bioreactors. Which in turn could have led to potentially huge
repair and replacement costs.
To prevent that from happening, ultimately what was decided
explains Wilner is “we put in an in昀氀uent pump station… so that
in the event of major storm events we could bypass to lagoons.
We could also take oil to the lagoons if we had to or take it to the
primary clari昀椀ers [with] three primary clari昀椀ers in parallel that
could then separate the oil and then can be disposed of.”
It’s worth noting the pump station is a signi昀椀cant add-on and
not typical of what would be used by similar-sized municipalities
(approximately 30,000 residents). But the reality is in a city dubbed
the ‘Heavy Oil Capital of the World,’ such contaminants still make
their way into the waterways via local businesses and industries
despite e昀昀orts to encourage best practices for disposal.
Despite that added cost, Wilner says the overarching mindset
for taking these steps was “to protect the interest of the city of
Lloydminster… and the environment… and the project,” instead of
blindly prioritizing cost reduction for the sake of making a bigger
pro昀椀t.
Ultimately what resulted in the project coming in under budget
were numerous cost-saving design tweaks. Tweaks made thanks to
the one-for-all, all-for-one mindset the team embraced.
One example Chandos’ Strachan gives was the decision to opt
for a pre-engineered building. “With a pre-engineered building,
there’s a lot of optimization that goes into the steel member
design,” he says, adding that “we did a detailed choosing by
advantages (method) to decide on the pre-engineered building,
because it’s not all positives.”
Strachan says there is a great deal of coordination that goes
into selecting pre-engineered structures, “but from a square-foot
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RENEW CANADA – NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2024
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