ACEC/PA Honors Century Engineering

The American Council of Engineering Companies of Pennsylvania (ACEC/PA) named Century Engineering, Incorporated (Nittany Engineering Division) as the 2020 Waste and Stormwater winner for the completion of the Bellefonte Borough Authority Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrade, at the organization’s annual Diamond Awards for Engineering Excellence Gala at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square. The project also achieved a National Recognition Award in the American Council of Engineering Companies 2020 Engineering Excellence Awards (EEA) competition, known as the “Academy Awards” of the engineering industry.

The Bellefonte Borough Wastewater Treatment Facility is located along Spring Creek in Centre County and discharges upstream of a recreational lake used by all types of water enthusiasts. The facility had little treatment capacity remaining in the core treatment area within the plant (Activated Sludge System) and found that other supplemental treatment equipment (Rotating Biological Contractors) were mechanically failing at the limits of their life expectancy, and needed to be replaced in-kind, or with another treatment process.

“Century Engineering, Incorporated created an effective solution for the Bellefonte Borough Wastewater Treatment Facility,” said Leeann Sherman, executive director of ACEC/PA. “The improvements made by Century’s design increased the life expectancy of the facility, and the BioMag system fundamentally helps the performance of this increasing treatment facility.”

The facility needed a solution to replace the rotating biological contractors and manage additional future pollution for the next 20 years that would fit into the facility footprint within an affordable, practical approach.  Century’s design included the BioMag® system, which uses magnetite to enhance the clarification process. The system uses the world’s fastest proven settling clarification technology for biological floc allowing capacity expansion and performance improvement minimizing plant modifications and capital investments.

Incorporating BioMag into the existing BBA plant tanks has provided excellent clarification performance at higher clarifier loadings with an increased biological treatment population in the tanks producing very low ammonia results. Based on the improvements, the new capacity for the facility has been increased by 41 percent with the ability to treat a higher influent organic load.  In addition, the overall sludge treatment has been significantly improved with cleaner, better screened biosolids with little to no odor from the process, which was a priority for the authority.