The Industrial Development Agency (IDA) of Tioga County, NY enticed Crown Cork & Seal, a global aluminum packaging company, to select a site in the Town of Nichols to construct a new aluminum can manufacturing facility. To make the property attractive for development, the IDA agreed to upgrade Nichol’s public drinking water and wastewater treatment infrastructure to serve the new manufacturing facility. However, the upgrades could not be started until Crown Cork & Seal committed to developing the site, and they needed to be completed before the new manufacturing facility came online. The result was a timeframe of one year to complete the design and construction of all water and wastewater upgrades.

IDA authorized Larson Design Group (LDG) to start the project in January 2017. By November 2017, LDG had to complete design, permitting, bidding and construction, a process that typically would take two years to complete. The Nichols WWTF expansion involved a new sequencing batch reactor (SBR), repurposing existing treatment basins, upgrading an existing control building and adding a new building for filtration and sludge handling. The project became even more complex when the Department of Environmental Conservation determined that the design needed to meet strict nutrient limits as well as the industrial wastewater from Crown.

To meet the aggressive schedule, Dutchland precast concrete was chosen for the SBR tank. Dutchland designed, manufactured and constructed the SBR tank for the Nichols WWTF, measuring 50’-6” wide by 45’-6” long, in 16 weeks. In fact, Dutchland was only on-site for less than six weeks.

Vacri Construction, the general contractor, and LDG were successful in repurposing the WWTF into a robust treatment plant that consistently meets its discharge limits. Dutchland was proud to be part of the project team that was able to meet the tight deadlines necessary to provide the needed wastewater service to the Crown manufacturing facility on-time and within budget.