Client: City of Brookfield

Location: Brookfield, Wisconsin

The City of Brookfield operates the Fox River Water Pollution Control Center, a 12.5 mgd (51‑mgd peak) advanced wastewater treatment plant serving portions of Brookfield and six other Waukesha County communities. The City retained Donohue to develop a Facility Plan for this regional wastewater treatment facility.

The purpose of the Facility Plan was to develop an upgrade strategy to address foreseeable liquid-train issues that jeopardize effluent limit compliance throughout the 20-year planning period. The primary issues include a future low-level effluent phosphorus limit (0.075 mg/L), equipment age and reliability, and community growth.

The planning effort included evaluation of tertiary filtration upgrades for meeting low-level effluent phosphorus. The evaluation identified installation of new cloth-media filters into Brookfield’s existing sand filter building as the most cost-effective solution for permit compliance. In order to further evaluate treatment performance of the recommended upgrades, pilot testing was carried out utilizing a combination of chemical dosing and cloth-media filtration. The pilot testing demonstrated effluent quality in compliance with the 0.075 mg/L future phosphorus limit.

Another tool utilized during the evaluation was a calibrated dynamic activated sludge BioWin model. The long-term dynamic simulations produced insight-providing probability distributions that guided the development of operating strategies for meeting the low-level effluent phosphorus limit.

In addition to facility planning, Donohue has completed additional wastewater projects for Brookfield; they include:

• 2035 Facilities Plan
• Phosphorus Removal Study
• RAS Pump Station Improvements
• Aeration System Efficiency Improvements
• Disinfection System Upgrade
• Sewer Cleaning/Dewatering
• Digester Inspections
• Generator and Controls Replacement
• WPDES Permit Renewal/Application Assistance
• PE Splitter Structure Rehabilitation