South Carolina

Easley Combined Utilities’ (ECU) Don L. Moore Water Treatment Plant (WTP) was at capacity, and ECU was forced to purchase supplemental water from Greenville Water. With water system demands projected to grow significantly over the next two decades, ECU decided to upgrade and expand their treatment facilities. Design South was retained to plan and design an upgrade and expansion to ECU’s 40-year-old WTP. This project was completed in two phases.

Phase One resulted in the complete replacement of the existing 8.9 MGD WTP including a new 36 MGD raw water intake and pump station, 12 MGD process treatment train, new chemical feed facility, a 5.0 MG finished water storage tank, a 36 MGD finished water pump station, alum sludge handling system improvements, rehabilitation of the 1960s control building, installation of a new fiber optic communication ring around the plant, and a PLC based distributed control system utilizing Wonderware InTouch HMI/SCADA software.

Phase Two increased the plant’s capacity to 18 MGD and started with a pilot testing for plate settlers and high-rate filtration. The Phase Two expansion featured installation of plate settlers in existing sedimentation basins, high rating of the dual media filters, expansion of the residuals handling facilities, construction of a new 4.5 MW standby/peak shaving power system and site improvements including access road paving, additional sidewalks, site process piping, stormwater piping, perimeter fencing, and landscaping.

ECU has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars annually treating their own water vs. buying water from other suppliers. Their savings are more than enough to pay the financing costs of the new plant. This project was completed within schedule and budget.

The Don L. Moore Water Treatment Plant was awarded the South Carolina Engineering Excellence Award by ACEC-SC.