This project consists of lining a 3-million-gallon treated wastewater holding lagoon for the Artesian Wastewater Treatment Plant (Artesian) in Milton, Delaware. This lagoon was installed adjacent to an existing 90-million-gallon wastewater lagoon and acts as an additional buffer for contaminants. The new lagoon features a screening station and lift pump to divert the wastewater from the new, smaller lagoon into the larger, existing 90-million-gallon lagoon. Having a lined lagoon is imperative to the treatment plant because it ensures that wastewater cannot permeate in to the shallow groundwater and contaminate the surrounding area. Lining this lagoon with a geomembrane creates a secure container for the wastewater after it is treated but before it can be moved to a final holding location.

The creation of wastewater lagoons allows the suspended materials within the water to settle or “precipitate” and fall out of suspension. This means that when the wastewater is transported or released from this facility, the “reclaimed” water is suitable for a variety of applications, which are discussed below. Once the wastewater is treated, it is released/diffused into “spray fields” in the surrounding region. These spray fields are beneficial because they reduce the necessity for drawing irrigation water from local groundwater resources, which preserves local groundwater and minimizes nutrient influx into streams, rivers, and nearby Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. As a result, this makes many farming operations more eco-friendly as well as less expensive. Artesian has a tract of privately owned land that consists of agricultural and wooded areas in which the effluent is sprayed. This land is part of an agricultural preservation easement, created by the Delaware Agricultural Lands Preservation Foundation. The average designed flow through this treatment facility is between 1.5 to 2.0 million gallons-per-day (MGD). The wastewater from the Milton, DE plant can be sent to Artesian’s network of over 1,700 acres of spray irrigation fields. This project is a part of a long-term goal for Artesion to have a central station for wastewater at their Route 30 facility, which will serve Milton and surrounding areas.

The other prominent applications of the “reclaimed” water besides agriculture include irrigation in public parks, forests, cemeteries, traffic medians, and golf courses at a lower cost, both financially and environmentally.

When deploying the geosynthetics, having the rolls of geomembrane factory-fabricated and sequenced at the site improved efficiency for the installation crews because the materials were “prepped” and ready for deployment. Having the tools and materials where they needed to be so they could be accessed quickly was imperative to a smooth workflow for the installer. Another important consideration is the factory fabrication allowed the installer to upcycle equipment resources that were once deemed unusable, and it can help preserve existing resources as a result.

Implementing wastewater treatment facilities and screening processes gives the “reclaimed” water a second purpose in that it can be utilized to support nearby agricultural and recreational goals after treatment. Thinking about how we can take a once contaminated resource and modify it to make it viable for a secondary use is environmentally conscientious and supports the longevity of other local resources that can be used for other purposes.

Factory fabricated panels, also known as “modular fabrication”, played a large role in the success of this project because there were many custom features that had to be accommodated in this lagoon. Our use of custom factory fabricated geomembrane panels helped to reduce waste because they are measured and seamed offsite. The seaming of material is performed in a factory-controlled environment without any weather constraints, improving the overall seam quality, and omitting destructive seam sampling during installation. Our crews were able to maximize their time onsite by minimizing the amount of field seams that needed to be constructed and tested, which is cost effective to the client. Without factory fabrication of the geomembrane, the installation would have taken longer and cost more. Installing the geomembrane contained the wastewater so it could not contaminate the groundwater, which would eventually contaminate nearby streams, rivers, and bays.