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Headworks, Dryden Box & Influent Flume Improvements

City of Modesto

Construction Cost: $17 million

This project at the City of Modesto’s Primary Sutter Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant has recently completed construction. The project involved constructing numerous 30-foot deep reinforced concrete junction structures tying into existing structures and pipelines, installation of several hundred feet of 60-inch diameter reinforced fiberglass mortar polymer pipelines, replacing all five Headworks bar screens, replacing all three bar screens at Pumping Plant No. 3, replacing screening washers/compactors, addition of a grit pump and grit chamber paddle, odor control improvements, and major electrical improvements that include replacing motor control centers (MCCs) and upgrading control systems with new PLCs to improve remote automated control via the existing supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system.


The scope of work included pumped bypasses, shutdowns, temporary systems, tie-ins, and startups requiring manipulation of existing system valves and gates to test the new system in a loop prior to incorporation into the process with short timelines for testing, startup, and commissioning. This work was performed while maintaining operation of the existing facility. Construction of the junction structures required control of high groundwater tables and complicated shoring systems, and temporary bypasses which were required in order to facilitate demolition of existing piping within the new tie-in structures, while minimizing impacts to the operation of the existing treatment plant processes.

Team Spotlight

J.P. Davis, PE, CCM, QSP

Construction Management Business Sector Leader

Jesse Shah

Resident Inspector (Group 2)