Donohue & Associates and the City of Two Rivers received a State Finalist Award in the 2010 ACEC Wisconsin Engineering Excellence competition. The award recognizes a wastewater treatment facility expansion and optimization project in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. This project successfully applied innovative engineering techniques to increase the City’s treatment capacity needs while reducing energy costs.

Donohue performed a comprehensive evaluation to determine whether the Two Rivers wastewater treatment facility could receive additional flows from the Village of Mishicot. To meet the demand, Donohue designed improvements to the controls for the aeration system and a complete rehabilitation of the anaerobic digesters, gas handling system, and sludge storage facilities. These improvements have allowed the City to treat the additional 12% wastewater generated by the Village of Mishicot. They also reduced electricity costs by $20,000/year and sludge hauling costs by 25% and eliminated nuisance odors close to downtown businesses and the scenic Lake Michigan shoreline. Through careful planning, Donohue achieved the City’s sustainability goals while increasing capacity.

The Two Rivers City Manager, Gregory Buckley, said of the project, “We are extremely happy with the results of our plant expansion. We now have wastewater treatment facilities that are able to effectively treat both Mishicot’s and the City’s wastewater with capacity to take us into the future."