Drinking Water Treatment Plant

The City of West Palm Beach’s Public Utilities Department has ongoing major capital improvement projects at its WTP that will advance the reliability, safety, and security of its public water supply.

A vulnerability assessment was conducted on the WTP and its water supply. The assessment confirmed the primary entrance to the West Palm Beach WTP as a risk for the City, given its proximity to critical assets.

DP Development was awarded the task to reduce the risk presented by this main entrance. A new plant-access driveway was constructed along the north side of the property on Australian Avenue, a much larger thoroughfare. This new access driveway included a dedicated turn lane, security guard checkpoint, video surveillance, and card-swipe-access control for the City staff. Chemical deliveries, sludge transport, and traffic from ongoing construction are now safely separated from the critical assets.

A second part of the plant investigation revealed that the mixing of disinfection chemicals was insufficient. To alleviate these issues, the City asked DP Development to construct an above-grade 48-inch in-line static mixer and a centralized venturi flow meter between the transfer pump station and the ground storage tanks. Since the system only has enough storage to be off line for 8 hours, DP Development had to include a 20 mgd temporary bypass system from the transfer pump clear well to the ground storage tanks to enable the WTP to remain in service during the construction tie-ins.

As a part of the new metering and mixing header, DP Development installed a new centralized flow meter. The new meter allows flow-pacing of chemicals with greater accuracy and reliability. The addition of the mixing and metering header, and the automation of the finished water chemical dosing and controls, has been a major upgrade from the old antiquated process.

Through the new infrastructure that DP Development has constructed, the West Palm Beach WTP is safe, more reliable, and produces a consistent finished water quality with minimal manual intervention. The new access driveway provides safer ingress and egress.

The work provided by DP Development’s highly committed and experienced staff was performed on time, under budget, and without incident.