Bakersfield Wastewater Treatment Plant Number 3

Bakersfield, California

Kiewit upgraded and expanded the Bakersfield Wastewater Treatment Plant’s capacity from 16 to 32 million gallons per day. The project included secondary and tertiary treatment processes, odor control systems, a new operations building and a new maintenance shop.

The scope of work also involved constructing a new headworks structure with mechanically cleaned bar screens, influent pumps and grit removal tanks. The team constructed a new activated-sludge secondary treatment system that consists of aeration basins, fine bubble air diffusers, aeration blowers, a blower building, secondary clarifiers, a return/waste activated sludge pump station and a plant process water pump station.

In addition, crews constructed upgrades to a 2-million-gallon-per-day tertiary treatment system that includes a rapid mixer, cloth media continuous backwash filter, chlorine contact tank, flocculation and disinfection chemical facilities, six new effluent disposal percolation basins and dissolved air flotation sludge thickeners. Overall project quantities included more than 1.5 million cubic yards of scraper excavation, 42,000 cubic yards of structural concrete, and 120,000 linear feet of aboveground and underground pipe ranging from 0.5 to 90 inches in diameter.