Our team completed the Red Deer Treatment Plant Residuals Management Facility, a new water treatment building located directly beside the Red Deer River that earned a Bronze Envision® Award for Leadership in Sustainable Infrastructure.
The facility improves how waste from the water treatment plant’s clarification process is handled before it reaches the river, reducing visible plume and sediment impacts on fish habitat. At the heart of the project was converting an old in-river intake structure into a new outfall, allowing treated water to be discharged back into the river at a fraction of its original turbidity, dropping from over 300 NTU to as low as 5 to 10 NTU.
That conversion came with a real challenge. The in-river work had to happen inside a temporary cofferdam built nearly 53 metres into the river, during a year when water levels ran unusually high. Our team took on the hydraulic engineering for the cofferdam, monitoring river flows daily alongside regulators to determine safe timing for the work, and coordinated closely with Fisheries and Oceans Canada as the season extended into a restricted access period. The result was a safe, successful in-water build with no impact on the river’s ecosystem.
The new facility was built around the foundation of a demolished, out-of-service treatment plant, with its precast concrete and thin brick exterior designed to blend seamlessly with the surrounding facility. Equipment and materials salvaged from the original building were redistributed for reuse rather than sent to landfill. Throughout construction, the existing plant remained fully operational, with only limited shutdowns during scheduled windows.
The project also delivered a 23.6 per cent reduction in operational energy use compared to industry norms, achieved through improved roof insulation, heat recovery systems, and automated lighting controls, along with noise and vibration mitigation measures to protect nearby residents.
Through this work, the City of Red Deer now has a modern, sustainable residuals management facility that protects the health of the Red Deer River for generations to come.
