McCarthy Building Companies and engineer of record Black & Veatch have completed a $74.3 million modernization of the Kansas River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Lawrence, Kansas. The plant dates to 1956 and treats roughly 8 million gallons a day, about 80 percent of the city’s wastewater. It was the first time Lawrence used construction manager at risk delivery on a wastewater project.
Project Scope
Four existing aeration basins were converted to biological nutrient removal basins, cutting the nitrogen and phosphorus the plant discharges to the Kansas River. Chlorine disinfection was replaced with ultraviolet treatment. The plant received a new SCADA control building for real-time monitoring, along with a plant-wide electrical modernization. None of it happened offline. McCarthy wrote more than 130 separate operational sequencing plans to keep the plant inside its discharge permit while tie-ins were made. The team logged over 252,000 field hours with no recordable incidents.
Why It Matters
Two things make this worth watching. The first is regulatory: tightening NPDES permit limits on nutrients are generating a long pipeline of retrofit work at aging municipal plants, and the engineering is rarely a clean-sheet design. It’s threading new process trains through basins that have to stay in service. The second is delivery. CMAR is well established on buildings and still fights for acceptance among risk-averse public water owners. A first-time municipal user finishing on budget gives contractors a reference to point at. McCarthy has been assembling a dedicated water practice around exactly this demand, with concurrent jobs in Mesa, Arizona and Torrance, California.
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Project Team & Details
| Owner / Client | City of Lawrence, Kansas |
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| Consultants | Black & Veatch (Engineer of Record) |
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| General Contractor | McCarthy Building Companies |
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| Status | Completed |
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| Delivery Method | CMAR |
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| Funding Source | Public (Municipal) |
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