CDM Smith Projects Honored at 2016 American Council of Engineering Companies Awards Gala

BOSTON—CDM Smith is hon­ored to be rec­og­nized with one Grand Award and four Recog­ni­tion Awards in the Amer­i­can Coun­cil of En­gi­neer­ing Com­pa­nies (ACEC) 2016 En­gi­neer­ing Ex­cel­lence Awards com­pe­ti­tion.

The DC Water Biosolids Man­age­ment Pro­gram, which won a Grand Award, sought to tap po­ten­tial en­ergy sources at DC Water's Blue Plains waste­water treat­ment fa­cil­ity in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. When its orig­i­nal con­cept proved un­eco­nom­i­cal, DC Water se­lected the in­no­v­a­tive CAMBI® ther­mal hy­drol­y­sis process to en­able its sys­tem to more eas­ily cap­ture methane from biosolids that are pro­duced as the fa­cil­ity treats its waste­water, and then feed it to tur­bines to gen­er­ate clean en­ergy. The joint ven­ture of lead­ing waste­water treat­ment plant de­sign-build ex­perts, CDM Smith and PC Con­struc­tion, was se­lected to im­ple­ment this chal­leng­ing pro­ject. The pro­ject faced many hur­dles in­clud­ing im­ple­ment­ing a brand new tech­nol­ogy, fig­ur­ing out how to fit all of the com­po­nents into a tight space, and keep­ing within sched­ule and bud­get. De­spite the com­plex­i­ties, the CAMBI® sys­tem was suc­cess­fully in­stalled and is now pro­duc­ing enough gas to gen­er­ate 10 megawatts of net en­ergy, about a third of DC Water’s cur­rent power sup­ply. The plant also pro­duces ex­cep­tional qual­ity biosolid prod­ucts, which are blended with soil and used through­out its land­scap­ing, as well as else­where in the Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia. As a re­sult of the pro­ject, DC Water now has a unique fa­cil­ity that op­ti­mizes its re­sources while also gen­er­at­ing new ones.

The Alumni Drive Im­prove­ments pro­ject for the Uni­ver­sity of Ken­tucky won a Na­tional Recog­ni­tion Award. Pro­vid­ing ac­cess to Com­mon­wealth Sta­dium and the Uni­ver­sity of Ken­tucky Ar­bore­tum, Alumni Drive’s 1.4 miles were re­con­structed in 16 weeks—open­ing one day ear­lier than sched­uled—while main­tain­ing ac­cess to ad­ja­cent con­struc­tion, day­care, hous­ing and park­ing fa­cil­i­ties. This pro­ject in­cluded com­plete pave­ment re­place­ment and ex­pan­sion of the ex­ist­ing two-lane road­way to safely ac­com­mo­date pedes­tri­ans, bi­cy­clists and 19,000 ve­hi­cles daily. The green road­way was de­signed in just 3 months and was widened to in­clude bi­cy­cle lanes, a non-mount­able me­dian, a multi-use trail, and LED street lights. Two ex­ist­ing stop-con­trolled in­ter­sec­tions were con­verted to round­abouts, in­creas­ing ef­fi­ciency and re­duc­ing ve­hi­cle emis­sions. A spe­cial­ized de­sign fea­ture al­lows bi­cy­clists to ei­ther merge into traf­fic or use a slip lane to join the multi-use trail to tra­verse the round­abouts.

The Penn­syl­va­nia De­part­ment of Trans­porta­tion's (Pen­nDOT) Rapid Bridge Re­place­ment (RBR) pro­ject re­ceived a Na­tional Recog­ni­tion Award. By the end of 2017, Pen­nDOT will re­place 558 struc­turally de­fi­cient bridges across the state thanks to a ground­break­ing pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship (P3) with de­vel­oper con­sor­tium Ple­nary Walsh Key­stone Part­ners. The deal is among the fastest ever pro­cured in the United States. CDM Smith pro­vided tech­ni­cal ad­vi­sory ser­vices to Pen­nDOT, de­vel­op­ing a bridge screen­ing process to iden­tify high-value re­place­ments for the RBR pro­gram and help­ing the de­part­ment craft a strong P3 pro­cure­ment. This pro­ject was named Best Trans­port Pro­ject at P3 Awards 2015 and was one of Pub­lic Works Fi­nanc­ing’s top 10 Trans­port Deals of the Year.

The Red/Pur­ple Mod­ern­iza­tion (RPM) Cor­ri­dor Pro­gram also won a Na­tional Recog­ni­tion Award. Through the RPM, Chicago Tran­sit Au­thor­ity is re­con­struct­ing and re­vi­tal­iz­ing 9.6 miles of the 100-year-old Red and Pur­ple rail lines—two of the busiest lines in the coun­try. CDM Smith, the lead firm in the CWC Tran­sit Group joint ven­ture team, com­pleted the en­vi­ron­men­tal doc­u­men­ta­tion and con­cep­tual en­gi­neer­ing for two pro­jects in the pro­gram’s first phase: the mod­ern­iza­tion of four sta­tions along the north Red and Pur­ple lines, and a by­pass and up­grade/straight­en­ing of tracks where the Red, Pur­ple and Brown lines con­verge. Once com­pleted, the RPM pro­gram will rep­re­sent the largest cap­i­tal pro­ject in CTA his­tory, ex­pand­ing ca­pac­ity, im­prov­ing ac­cess to jobs and sup­port­ing local eco­nomic de­vel­op­ment. Con­struc­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of phase one alone is ex­pected to be $1.9 bil­lion.

Wash­ing­ton, D.C.'s Tingey Street Di­ver­sion Sewer pro­ject (TSDS) re­ceived Na­tional Recog­ni­tion Award hon­ors. The re­de­vel­op­ment of The Yards area of the Ana­cos­tia River wa­ter­front in south­east Wash­ing­ton, D.C., re­quired water sys­tem up­grades to ac­com­mo­date dra­matic mixed-use growth. Once an in­dus­trial area that was part of Wash­ing­ton’s Navy Yard, The Yards now in­cludes res­i­den­tial build­ings, of­fice com­plexes, green spaces, re­tail­ers, restau­rants, and Na­tion­als Park, home of the Wash­ing­ton Na­tion­als base­ball team. The TSDS was a key el­e­ment of the water up­grades needed to sup­port growth in The Yards. CDM Smith pro­vided a de­sign-build so­lu­tion for the TSDS that de­liv­ered the pro­ject faster and at a lower cost than orig­i­nally an­tic­i­pated. By in­no­v­a­tively re­work­ing the pro­ject plan to elim­i­nate one of the an­tic­i­pated two jack­ing pits, CDM Smith sim­pli­fied the pro­ject, mit­i­gated con­struc­tion dis­rup­tions and com­mu­nity im­pacts, and de­liv­ered the pro­ject more ef­fec­tively. Ul­ti­mately, the pro­ject was com­pleted 10 per­cent below bud­get and sev­eral months ahead of sched­ule.

CDM Smith pro­vides last­ing and in­te­grated so­lu­tions in water, en­vi­ron­ment, trans­porta­tion, en­ergy and fa­cil­i­ties to pub­lic and pri­vate clients world­wide. As a full-ser­vice en­gi­neer­ing and con­struc­tion firm, we de­liver ex­cep­tional client ser­vice, qual­ity re­sults and en­dur­ing value across the en­tire pro­ject life cycle.