Star City Wastewater Treatment Plant

Located alongside the Monongahela River near Morgantown, West Virginia, the Star City WWTP is undergoing a major rehabilitation and expansion. The $78M project improves the reliability and efficiency of the plant while increasing capacity from 12 MGD to 21 MGD. 

Virtually every significant process within the plant is being replaced or improved. The heart of the existing water treatment process, an aging and overburdened rotating biological contactor system, is being replaced with modern membrane treatment systems. Additional new construction includes a headworks building, primary effluent splitter structure, primary effluent screening building, primary pumping station, MBR aeration tanks, digester, UV disinfection facility, and new control rooms and laboratories.

The entire plant is confined to a narrow floodplain along the Monongahela River, requiring detailed phasing to ensure both efficient construction and MOPO. Further complicating construction is the “back and forth” nature of the plant flow, reflecting a history of expansion on both sides of the original plant site.  The large diameter piping carrying the plant flow between the processes crisscrosses the facility in a complex network, requiring significant temporary measures and tie-in planning to complete the new construction.

Ulliman Schutte worked closely with the designer to develop construction phasing plans that maintained the design intent while allowing construction work to proceed safely and efficiently.  Detailed material staging, crane positioning, and temporary traffic plans were fully coordinated with the construction schedule to accommodate the extremely limited space on the plant.