Charlotte Water is building an advanced $ 650 million advanced wastewater treatment facility to treat water from a whole rapid growth region of about 3 million people associating with neighboring cities and delivering a project that can be easily expanded. The Recovery of Regional Stowe Water Resources, an umbrella name that covers multiple related projects, will be able to deal with 15 million gallons a day when it opens in 2027, but it is positioned and designed to grow up to 25 mgd when the time comes.
“We had to look at the capacity of our other plants,” says Nicole Bartlett, head of the engineering division and head of the Stowe project in Charlotte Water.
It comes Stowe as a “family project” with the aim of building a new wastewater treatment facility to attend the Mecklenburg county, as well as Mount Holly and Belmont, to the east of Gaston County.
Two equalization basins of 9 million gallons carry the total storage of the installation to 29 million gallons.
Photo courtesy Charlotte Water
This group of projects, the largest in Charlotte’s water history and the first new construction of the utility in almost 40 years, is built by a virtual family of contractors. HDR is the owner’s advisor to the global effort and was also an engineer for the Stowe access project, who completed an access road and a $ 16 million bridge in early 2024.
CDM Smith is building the Stowe Solds Solid Manipulation project of $ 42 million, which includes solid solid and 10-in solid facilities. Force Mains, everything that will end in the first half of 2027. GHD is building a $ 76 million project that includes a bomb station at the Belmont and Dual 30-in installation. Force the base below the catawba river and a 24 in. Main force from there to the Charlotte Water’s Paw Creek bomb station, all with an end goal of the third quarter of 2028.
The installation of regional water resource recovery of $ 301 million built by a joint Crowder building construction company is the heart of the effort, representing almost half of the total cost of the project and will be completed by the end of 2027.
Charlotte Water now has five main wastewater treatment plants, a total capacity of 123 mgd, 82 pump stations and 4,330 miles of sewerage network that serves all or six counties portions. The main installation will be connected and will collect the wastewater of the treatment plants owned by the cities of Mount Holly and Belmont on the other side of the river. This main installation will be disabled once Stowe comes to the Internet.
They have been up to half of the 50,000 Cu YD of concrete needed for the project.
Photo courtesy Charlotte Water
Build for growth
Bartlett describes Stowe as “a green field project built in a brownfield place.”
To the north of the project is the location of an old private and polluting industrial installation in the past area. Buying the land of the industrial owner, Charlotte Water wanted it to be classified as a brown field so that if they were pollutants on the future, Charlotte Water would be in the hook for cleaning.
This led to an environmental management plan that entails test requirements, limits the place where it can and cannot be quarreled and cannot be limited to the excess dirt coming out.
“This will be good for Charlotte, for the county of Gaston and for the environment as a whole.”
—Doug Shootd, Plant Supervisor, Stowe Regional WRRF
This is not the only headache caused by the place. Most of the Stowe Regional Project is on a river peninsula, and the non -water -surrounded side is privately owned. This left the city to build its own road and its bridge to access, with the team also could place seven pipes under the period.
Bartlett says that putting these pipes under the cove would have cost at least $ 1 million each, according to Bartlett, not only pointing to capital costs, but also easier long -term maintenance through rapid access from the bridge.
The connection of the Stowe facility with the Holly mountain plant required a horizontal directional perforation to install two strength shops under the river and a nearby cove. A similar plan for the installation of Belmont, still in design, will use two 30-in. Wastewater pipes that connect to a separate elevation station before the wastewater is pumped at the Stowe installation.
Doug Shootd, a Stowe facility plants supervisor, had the unique experience of seeing drilling from both sides of the river, as a former director of Mount Holly’s installation. In general, the perforation took about nine months, as it began by the beginning of 2022. The pipes pass under Long Creek near the Stowe site at a depth of 75 feet, and they run under the catawba river at a depth of 65 feet. The whole length is approximately 3,100 feet, with the two exercises that meet in the middle and have only 1.5 in. Shoutd says he added that horizontal directional perforation was the most profitable and less intrusive option.
The two -storey administrative building of the installation will be certified by Leed. It will include parking stains for the load of electric vehicles and the water that the building uses will be recycled.
Photo courtesy Charlotte Water
The star of the Stowe project is its basin of the elimination of five -stage biological nutrients, an advanced system that uses dense activated sludge technology to form dense sludge granules that are installed faster and increase efficiency, according to Charlotte Water. The process reduces the costs of infrastructure, as well as the needs of energy and chemistry compared to more traditional systems.
Two 9 -million gallon Basin cells have been completed in the portion of the project’s Long Creek bomb station, built with 4,070 concrete Cu. In November 2024, the project had excavated more than 500,000 c.
Other vertical constructions of the project include a maintenance building and a two -storey administration building built for LeED rules and oriented for solar efficiency and designed for public use and as a training and conference center.
“I worked next to Mount Holly and worked and directed this oldest plant,” says Shoutd. “This will be good for Charlotte, for the county of Gaston and for the environment as a whole.”
The project installed multiple forces through horizontal directional perforation.
Photo courtesy Charlotte Water
Teamwork causes treatment to work
According to Bartlett, “when you make a project of this magnitude, it can be a challenge to ensure that we follow the budget and the calendar, [and] That we communicate with all the members of the team. “
The close coordination with the design builders, who provide cost updates, including when the project has come out of the budget balance, has promoted value engineering and helped to follow the work.
Will Shull, HDR associate vice president, says that team coordination meetings are critical, with the planning already underway for the launch of plant at about 18 months. Another wrinkle that was ironed by narrow coordination has been a costs scale related to the materials. The progressive design of design design allowed a package of early materials.
“We have been able to advance and buy certain equipment (Bips and some electrical equipment) and block us at these prices to move forward.”
—Will Shull, Associate Vice President, HDR
“We have been able to advance and buy certain equipment (Bips and some electric equipment) and block in these prices before to move forward,” says Shull, emphasizing that these price increases were exponentially snow.
The Crowder-Garney Regional Water Resource Claim installation and several other projects use progressive design design. But others under the Stowe umbrella will be delivered through the construction of a Bid design, including the STOWE manipulation project by CDM Smith and PC Construction; The Belmont bomb station and GHD’s main force; and the Stowe access project for HDR and Blythe Construction.
Charlotte Water had to team up with its neighboring municipalities, thanks to a 30 -year state limit on the downloads on the river, according to Bartlett. It states that in 1995, the state established a total daily load lid (TMDL) for the permits of the timely source for nitrogen and phosphorus downloads on the catawba river. When Charlotte Water’s subsequent studies determined the need for a wastewater treatment facility at Stowe’s location due to population growth, the TMDL meant that they could not establish a new wastewater discharge limit.
With this, Charlotte contacted Belmont and Mount Holly, on the opposite shore of Catawba, to evaluate his interest in joining the city and closing his individual wastewater treatment facilities, says Bartlett.
“Charlotte Water would take their flow and, in return, these cities would give us … all their allocation of permits, including nitrogen and phosphorus,” he says. At first, there was a little hesitation with the municipalities who wondered if they give up some kind of control that they would prefer to preserve. But after more exploration, they saw the advantages, according to Bartlett.
The administrative building of the facilities will have a community space for public meetings, workshops and events.
Photo courtesy Charlotte Water
The movement allows Charlotte to build a plant on the river under a plan to meet the needs of the three entities, as Belmont and Mount Holly weighed expensive improvements and expansions in their facilities. The two cities will become a single Charlotte Water customer, which will end up taking and treating their download at Stowe’s installation. Belmont and Mount Holly will disable their respective plants. The movement also minimizes wastewater pumping and reduces general carbon footprint.
The agreement with Mount Holly was reached in 2018 and with Belmont in 2019. Predesign and departure permit by 2020, and the construction began by 2022 in Stowe. Bartlett says that the new project expands the life of the other major facilities in Charlotte Water and included the largest public dissemination of the utility in his twenty years of career in the industry. The effort included virtual public meetings during COVID-19 social network regimes, aggressive, developing a detailed website of projects with videos and mail organization and dissemination in community events, including at the next Middle School of Whitewater. This is especially rewarding in this case, according to Bartlett, as Whitewater is a school of E-STEM magnets (environmental, science, technology, engineering and mathematics). “We are excited to be part of this,” he says, emphasizing that the Stowe facility will be part of the school’s curriculum. “We have talked about race days and work contractors have come with us.”
