For the August entry of Wright-Pierce’s 2025 Calendar Series (which highlights projects featured in our yearly calendar), we focus on the Bates Avenue Wastewater Treatment Facility.
Project Overview
The Bates Avenue Wastewater Treatment Facility in the City of Eustis, Florida, is located northeast of the historic downtown area and had an initial capacity of 2.4 million gallons per day (mgd). Wright-Pierce was selected to provide evaluation, design, and construction-phase services for a 0.8-mgd expansion to the plant through a Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) collaborative delivery process.
Multi-Phased Services
To aid in successful completion of this project, we started with a thorough concept evaluation for the expansion. Our team prepared analyses of flows and loads, hydraulics, and unit processes to explore capacity expansion alternatives. We developed a BioWin® model of the existing plant under seasonal variations and significant industrial loadings. The evaluation identified a design alternative that cut costs significantly, saving the City of Eustis millions of dollars.
Design-phase services included improvements throughout the facility. Wright-Pierce re-rated the existing process tankage (Trains A and B), made improvements to the master lift station (Lift Station 1), added a new 60-foot-diameter secondary clarifier, designed a new Train C biological nutrient removal (BNR) process, and replaced tertiary disk filters, among other improvements.
The final phase of the project involved construction administration. Services in this phase included startup and performance testing, development of record drawings, and updates to the operations and maintenance manuals. Our work in this phase contributed toward successful closeout of the project.
About the Photo
Wright-Pierce’s Technology Leader— and Project Manager for this project—Bartt Booz, snapped this photo of the aeration basins at the treatment plant. When asked to share insight on the project, Bartt said, “Rather than duplicate some of the challenging complexities of the existing two treatment trains, Wright-Pierce and the City came to the same conclusion: keep it simple. We took advantage of a number of value engineering ideas through the CMAR collaborative process to allow the project to remain within the City’s available budget at a time when costs were skyrocketing.”
Project Impact
The expansion of the Bates Avenue Wastewater Treatment Facility not only allowed the City of Eustis to provide more reliable service to existing customers and its industrial contributors, but to be prepared for possible future growth in demand.
To learn more about how Wright-Pierce can assist with your wastewater needs, contact us today.