The City of St. Charles, Missouri is located just 25 miles outside of St. Louis and is situated along the banks of the Missouri River. One of the nation’s fastest growing areas, St. Charles has doubled in size to nearly 70,000 people in the last 20 years. To keep up with residential and commercial development, the City recently completed multi-million dollar upgrades to their wastewater treatment and pumping system. Looking for stability and to protect their investment for years to come, they hired Woodard & Curran as their partner to operate and maintain the assets for the next 10 years.
St. Charles’ wastewater system includes two secondary wastewater treatment plants, over 20 lift stations, one vacuum pump station, and one excess flow holding basin. The systems serve a residential, commercial, and industrial base equivalent to 91,000 people with a combined daily average flow of 17.2 million gallons per day.
Woodard & Curran has taken on responsibility for the plant and related systems, and kept all existing staff as well. John Zimmerman, Assistant Director of Public Works, explained “The transition of our O&M activities to Woodard & Curran has been seamless. We are thrilled to be working with a firm who we know will serve our city more efficiently and also take care of employees.”
The staff includes a project manager and an operations and maintenance team of 12 licensed professionals. The initial approach to operating the City’s facilities included a thorough evaluation of environmental compliance standards, review of the existing procedures, and a full review of utility processes, the success of the operating strategy being utilized, and the condition of the equipment used to accomplish these activities.
In addition to facilities operation, management, and staffing, Woodard & Curran is helping the City with their fats, oil and grease reduction program by providing industrial pre-treatment monitoring and reporting. This includes oil and grease inspections and waste minimization recommendations/education in connection with industrial, commercial, or residential discharges to the sewage collection system.
