*APWA 2003 Environmental Public Works Project of the Year*

In the early 1990’s the City of St. Charles annexed an area on the west side of the City.  As a means of providing water to the newly acquired area, the City proposed a new well and iron removal facility to be constructed to provide additional capacity to this Outer Service Area.  The improvements included the drilling and development of a new shallow sand and gravel well in the St. Charles Aquifer.  The well drilling was performed as a separate contract to expedite the project and to allow testing prior to commencing with the final design of the well pump and water treatment facility. 

Trotter and Associates provided the second phase of the project which consisted of site improvements, the installation of the well pump and the construction of the water treatment facility.  The project which began in October of 2001 included the installation of two Greensand pressurized filters proven effective for oxidation and removal or iron, manganese and hydrogen sulfide.  Together, the filters can produce up to 2.3 million gallons/day of treated water for domestic, commercial and fire suppression users.   

The water treatment facility includes a laboratory,  washroom, electrical room, mechanical room, chlorination room, chemical feed room, filtration room and two backwash holding tanks located under the floor of the work room/garage.  The project scope also included SCADA improvements that allow the continuous monitoring of the water treatment facility from the Water Department’s offices located in the Public Works Facility across town.  Site improvements included paving, landscaping, utilities and stormwater management.

The City’s Water Department has commented that they are very pleased with the operation of the facility and that it has operated better than expected.  Although a limited amount of sampling data exists, to date there have be no samples that have shown even a trace of iron – even with raw samples showing iron concentrations of around 2.8 mg/l.  Following completion of the Oak Street Water Filtration Facility the project was awarded the APWA Public Works Project of the Year for 2003 in the Environmental category.