2025 West Best Projects
Award of Merit, Water/Environment: Hyperion Advanced Water Purification Facility
Hyperion Advanced Water Purification Facility
Del Rey, Calif.
Award of Merit
Submitted by Walsh Group
Owner Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment
Lead Design Firm Brown and Caldwell
General Contractor Walsh Construction Co.
As part of a proof of concept toward the city of Los Angeles’ ambitious goal of recycling 100% of their wastewater, this full scale 1.5-million-gallon-per-day facility is now one of the largest water reclamation plants in the country.
To help create a new, sustainable water supply for Los Angeles and fully reuse all water at Hyperion, the plant treats primary effluent to provide high-quality, nitrified-denitrified recycled water for various uses at the Los Angeles International Airport, including cooling tower make-up water, toilet flushing and other non-potable uses.
Multiple advanced treatment processes, including membrane bioreactors, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet advanced oxidation are in use at Hyperion.
As Los Angeles Sanitation & Environment’s first progressive design-build project, collaborative delivery allowed the team to tackle many project complexities, including multiple layers of stakeholder interests, regulations for non-potable reuse, a tight schedule and the owner’s desire to be heavily involved throughout design, preconstruction, construction and performance validation phases.
Shortly after project kick-off, the project team learned that it had 30% less space than planned. To fit the treatment process, the new configuration places equipment and provides access on three structurally configured raised decks while locating fine screens directly above the BNR basins, saving space and reducing influent pumping infrastructure.
