With chronic droughts draining reservoir levels to 30% capacity or less in Abilene, the city hired a team to complete the installation of an advanced water treatment system as part of a major upgrade project to the city’s Hamby Water Reclamation Facility (WRF). The original WRF was constructed in 1956 and had been expanded and upgraded several times over the past 50-plus years.

The Hamby WRF and Reuse Project is the first part of a multi-phase drought response initiative. Teams installed an advanced water treatment system at the WRF, which now utilizes the largest membrane bioreactor facility in Texas, providing up to an additional 9 million gallons a day of raw water supply. Field construction started in January 2014, and the facility was online in less than 12 months—a typical project of this size would normally take 24 to 36 months to complete.

Construction activities did not disrupt operations, and the team got maximum use out of the plant site by repurposing as many existing structures as possible.

Along with the membrane bioreactor system, the WRF now also utilizes biological-nutrient removal, reverse osmosis and ozone and biologically active technologies. The treatment systems were selected for a variety of reasons, which include meeting the construction footprint and repurposing existing structures to help with budget control and capital and operational costs.

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