Attendees of the August 7 to 9 2018 ISA Water/Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium in Bethesda, Maryland will have the opportunity to attend an EMA-sponsored tour of DC Water’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant.
DC Water’s Blue Plains facility is the largest plant of its kind in the world, treating close to 300 million gallons of wastewater on an average day. It can treat over 1 billion gallons a day at peak flow. The facility uses primary and secondary treatment along with denitrification, multimedia filtration, and chlorination/dechlorination for enhanced nutrient removal to meet stringent discharge limits. A thermal hydrolysis process is used for biosolids treatment, producing a Class A biosolids soil amendment and enhancing digester gas production. The digester gas is used in a combined heat and power system, generating a net 10MW of electricity which reduces electricity consumption by a third.
DC Water has been an EMA client since 1998, when EMA began working as the prime consultant for their Blue Plains Process Control System (PCS) Master Plan implementation project.
As the prime consultant for the PCS implementation project, EMA was responsible for management, design, construction, coordination, and programming. EMA provided control system installation oversight including factory acceptance, site acceptance, and combined loop testing. The implementation was phased to coordinate closely with the Capital Improvement Program which significantly expanded the Blue Plains facility. EMA coordinated with multiple design engineering firms and contractors to integrate the PCS design and control strategies with process additions and changes. Plant expansions and upgrades continue today, including the recent Clean Rivers Project tunnel system to reduce CSOs in the District.
