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WICHITA, Kansas (Feb. 21, 2018) — A new 5.4 million-gallon-per-day (MGD) Water Treatment Facility for Arkansas City, Kansas, is ready for service. Formal dedication ceremonies are scheduled for Feb. 22.

With capacity to easily expand to 6.3 MGD, the new plant provides a stable and secure source of drinking water for Arkansas City, a community of 12,000 located in south-central Kansas and surrounding customers.

The new $22 million plant was built at a cost of $4 million under the original budget. In addition, advanced technology will enable the plant to achieve annual operations and maintenance cost savings of 20 percent under costs of the existing city water treatment facility that had been in operation since the 1950s.

“Arkansas City now has an outstanding new water treatment facility that will guarantee clean, affordable water for our citizens for decades to come,” said Nick Hernandez, city manager of Arkansas City. “We’re thrilled that this outstanding project came in well under budget, and will save operations and maintenance costs for years to come.”

Burns & McDonnell worked in partnership with the city’s Public Works Department to implement a number of technology solutions as part of a wide-ranging cost savings initiative. Among the most significant savings was a reclassification of the Arkansas City water supply, enabling a savings of $1.5 million.

The city currently utilizes 10 wells within the Arkansas River alluvium for its water supply. Studies showed that the continued use of the alluvial well field was the most reliable and cost-effective water source. However, the wells previously had been identified as a well field with “groundwater under the direct influence of surface water.” Burns & McDonnell conducted a study that confirmed the wells are not under the direct influence of surface water. This reclassification enabled the city to switch from more expensive microfiltration technology to GreensandPlus filtration and integrate other cost-saving equipment adjustments.

Additional studies verified that the less expensive treatment options were sufficient to remove iron, manganese and other minerals, as well as other constituents such as chlorides, total dissolved solids, hardness and other contaminants. Extensive testing verified that water quality treated at the new facility exceeds standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The water treatment plant design incorporates a below-grade raw water charge tank, vertical turbine raw water booster pumps, GreensandPlus filtration, cartridge filters, reverse osmosis high-pressure pumps, reverse osmosis treatment and bypass blending.

In addition, the plant features a new 1.5 million-gallon clearwell and high-service pumping for finished water supply to the distribution system, and a full range of other chemical treatment systems to provide a stable drinking water supply to the customers.

About Burns & McDonnell

Burns & McDonnell is a family of companies made up of more than 6,000 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants and entrepreneurs with offices across the country and throughout the world. We strive to create amazing success for our clients and amazing careers for our employee-owners. Burns & McDonnell is 100 percent employee-owned and is proud to be No. 16 on Fortune’s 2017 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For.