Donohue & Associates and the City of Fort Wayne, Indiana, received the distinguished Honor Award in the 2011 ACEC Indiana Engineering Excellence competition. The award recognizes the design of the new North Pump and Electrical Buildings at its Three Rivers Filtration Plant (TRFP). The carefully planned design allowed construction and commissioning of the improvements while maintaining sufficient pressures throughout the system, keeping the facility continuously treating and distributing water. The City also wanted to proactively address the entire facility’s aging electrical system to ensure its continued reliability for many years to come.

Prior to this project, less than one-half of the 20 MG reservoir capacity could be used due to hydraulic limitations of the existing high service pumping systems. The design significantly increased the effective capacity of finished water storage by more than doubling the usable volume of the existing reservoirs, from 8 MG to 17 MG. This 9 MG increase allowed the City to avoid construction of a much more costly additional reservoir.

Mark Gensic, PE, City Utility Manager stated, "…it was the extensive planning and construction sequencing that was done during the design that contributed greatly to the success of this project…Donohue’s series of drawings and detailed specifications detailing the multiple phases of the electrical work was key to the Contractor’s planning and scheduling – and key to the daily interaction with facility operations and maintenance staff during critical stages of construction."