Innovative Design-Build Procurement Approach for Large Wastewater Facility

The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) is implementing a consent decree driven $2.4 billion dollar long-term control plan (LTCP) aimed at reducing combined sewer overflow (CSO) into the District's waterways. The LTCP includes improvements and enhancements to a collection system, including a series of tunnels leading to the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant (AWTP), where a 946 million liter per day (mLd) (250 million gallon per day (mgd)) tunnel dewatering pump station (TDPS) and enhanced clarification facility (ECF) will be located to pump and treat the CSO flow. This $215 million wet weather facility, along with the entire collection and treatment system must be operational by March 23rd, 2018 to meet the consent decree mandated date.This paper describes an innovation of the DC Water Design-Build (DB) procurement process which was utilized for the complex TDPS and ECF components of the LTCP to provide a greater opportunity for proposers to offer innovative solutions that meet project objectives by incorporating some industry experiences and “lessons learned” from previous DC Water DB procurements.