Edward W. Bailey Greenfield Water Treatment Plant

Project Overview
Recognized as Colorado’s largest water supply program in decades, the Southern Delivery System (SDS) delivers Arkansas River water from the Pueblo Reservoir 50 miles to residents and businesses in the City of Colorado Springs, City of Fountain, Security Water District, and Pueblo West Metropolitan District. The owning integrated utility, Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU), implemented this historic infrastructure effort to secure a drought-resilient water supply, as well as reliable conveyance and treatment capacities, capable of meeting water needs in a growing region that lacks a major local water source.
Carollo was selected as the design engineer for the design-build of the $124-million Edward W. Bailey Water Treatment Plant, one of the most integral and costly components of the SDS network. This 200,800 square-foot facility features flocculation, sedimentation with parallel plates, and ozone/biological filtration with a filter loading rate of 10 gallons per minute per square-foot as well as a 10-million-gallon (MG) raw water storage tank that allows off-peak electric rate raw water pumping, 7-MG treated water storage tank, and finished water pumping to two different pressure zones.
The facility was originally envisioned in a sprawling campus-style configuration with 19 separate structures. However, Carollo, along with our partner McCarthy Building Companies, determined that this plan was not only costly but also exposed certain areas of the plant to poor soil conditions. Therefore, the project team forwarded a design that consolidated all of the treatment processes into a single main process building that reduced the facility’s construction costs by over 20 percent. This decision, combined with other innovative facility improvements, reduced the overall project costs by $70 million, saved 2,230,000 cubic yards of excavation, and 4 miles of yard piping (24-inch or greater).
Carollo also ensured robust planning and coordination between the design team, the construction contractor, and other SDS projects, which helped fulfill the project’s intensive scheduling demands. In particular, the design team met an aggressive 365-day design deliverable deadline to avoid incurring a liquidated damage penalty of $10,000 per day in addition to meeting a design-to budget (else re-design would occur for free). Through strict oversight and value engineering, the design was completed ahead of schedule. In addition, the progressive design-build team had to run the plant at full capacity (50 mgd) and meet finished water quality performance guarantees.
In its current state, the Edward W. Bailey Water Treatment Plant treats 50 million gallons per day (mgd) and has a minimum flow capacity of 5 mgd.













Results and Highlights
A $124-million design-build project to construct a 50-mgd water treatment plant with expansion capacity of up to 130 mgd
Value engineering that earned $70 million in project cost savings
Liquidated damages on engineering, a design-to-budget requirement, and performance testing at full plant capacity with water quality performance guarantees
Critical infrastructure for $1.45-billion water supply project that supports Southern Colorado’s resiliency and water security
Project Awards and Accolades
Engineering News Record (ENR)