South Milwaukee Water Utility and Donohue & Associates Win Engineering Excellence Award

enlarge photo

Close

The South Milwaukee Water Utility and Donohue & Associates, Inc. received a 2010 Best of State Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Wisconsin. The annual statewide competition recognizes engineering achievements that demonstrate a high degree of client satisfaction through quality, innovative, and cost effective solutions.

The award recognizes a major upgrade to the Utility's water treatment plant completed in 2009. The Utility has one of the oldest water treatment plants along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Donohue designed a conversion of its existing sand filtration process to a modern ultra-filtration pressurized membrane system, the first of its kind in Wisconsin.

A creative design layout made extensive use of existing buildings, as all new systems were placed within the confines of the existing footprint. The construction cost for a typical membrane water filtration plant is $2-$3/gallon of water treated, but through Donohue’s creative reuse of existing facilities, the South Milwaukee project cost approximately $1.40/gallon. The system has the capacity to treat 6 million gallons of water per day.

Douglas Fischer, South Milwaukee Water Utility Superintendent, stated “Our new facilities are working great and the water quality is amazing."

Donohue & Associates, Inc. is an employee-owned engineering consulting firm specializing in drinking water, wastewater, and transportation engineering services. The company has 120 employees across 11 Midwest offices in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri. The firm has won 17 Engineering Excellence awards since 2002.