WCW26

The Fish Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) Upgrade represents one of Calgary’s most significant treatment modernization efforts in recent years, driven by increasingly stringent effluent requirements and the need to reestablish treatment capacity for a rapidly growing service area. Advancing this complex program from a high‑level concept to a coordinated, tender‑ready design package required a structured, collaborative, and iterative approach that aligned process decisions, facility upgrades, and constructability considerations across multiple design stages. This presentation traces the key steps that shaped the project’s development from conceptual design, through preliminary and detailed design, and into the issued for tender (IFT) ready documents.
Rather than detailing each technical component of the upgrade, the presentation highlights how early evaluations – such as biological nutrient removal process selection, peak flow management requirements, and updated hydraulic modelling – guided downstream decisions related to site layout, tankage configuration, and integration with the existing operating plant. This early-stage coordination and selections established the foundation for design development and ensured that treatment objectives, regulatory needs, and expected future loading conditions were consistently carried throughout the project.
A critical component of the design progression was the structured Value Management (VM) process, which brought together City staff, the consultant design team, the construction manager, and independent reviewers to assess the design at key milestones and to provide design alternatives for consideration. Recommendations from the VM workshops helped refine process choices, optimize capital investments, and improve operational reliability. This collaborative environment accelerated alignment on major design drivers, such as biological nutrient removal configuration, primary and secondary treatment upgrades, filtration strategy, sludge handling improvements, and energy recovery opportunities, and ensured that the evolving IFT documentation reflected an optimized and coordinated project.
Attendees will gain insight into the practical challenges encountered as the project advanced through design, including navigating site constraints, maintaining plant operations during construction, coordinating multidisciplinary technical inputs, and balancing scope, schedule, and interested party expectations. This case study provides a clear and realistic look at how intentional planning, iterative evaluation, and strong team collaboration can successfully advance a major wastewater treatment plant upgrade, ultimately enabling utilities to implement complex upgrades with reduced risk and improved confidence.