The Town of Pittsville was having several issues with its waster system including high iron levels in raw water, sludge build up in the pre-treatment clarifiers, control system issues, lack of required flow for maintaining storage tank water levels during fire events, storage tank overflows, and balancing chemical systems. As a result of these issues, the Town of Pittsville received a Water Supply Grant of $650,000 from the Maryland Department of the Environment to fund a Water Treatment Plant – Phase I Pretreatment Upgrade Project that corrected the some of these issues including excessive sludge in the two existing pretreatment clarifiers and balancing of chemical systems for improvement of water quality and flow.

Davis, Bowen & Friedel, Inc. provided design, permitting, bidding, and construction administration/inspection services for the Phase I project which consisted of a building addition, installation of a third pre-treatment clarifier and aerator, improving the sludge discharge piping from the two existing clarifiers to improve discharge capacity and rehabilitate a polymer chemical mixing tank and adding caustic for pH/Alkalinity adjustment prior to clarifiers. The Phase I project was fast tracked with design completed in the Spring of 2011 and constructed in the by the end of Fall 2011.

While evaluating the Town’s water treatment facility in relation to the design of Phase I, DBF performed a complete treatment plant process evaluation and building inspection in anticipation of future phases. It was determined that the Phase II Upgrade was to include replacement of treatment filter media, filter and plant controls, and an elevated storage tank level transmitter, as well as a sludge bed addition, building improvements, and other miscellaneous plant upgrades for more efficient operations. Phase III included well rehabilitation and elevated storage tank re-coating.

DBF assisted the Town in securing grant funding for Phase II and III from USDA-RD and MDE and provided design, permitting, bidding, and construction administration/inspection services for each phase. Phase II was completed in 2013 and Phase III in 2015.

After the completion of these phases, DBF continued assisting the Town with improvements to its water treatment plant by acquiring a grant through MDE’s Energy Water Infrastructure Program (EWIP) by completion of a water pressure reduction project. The project reduced the system water pressure which saved the Town over 10,000 gallons of water each day.