Brightwater outfall earns prestigious ‘Best of the Best’ engineering award

The successful completion of Brightwater’s complex marine outfall project earned King County and its contractors the prestigious national “Best of the Best” award from McGraw-Hill Construction and Engineering News-Record magazine.

The project took top honors in the heavy/civil engineering category and was selected by an independent jury of construction professionals on the basis of innovation, safety, contribution to the community, aesthetic quality, and craftsmanship.

King County awarded the design-build outfall contract to Triton Marine Construction Corporation in 2007. The firm completed construction a year ahead of schedule in late 2008 at a cost of $29 million, 23 percent less than the original estimate of $38 million.

The 650-foot-deep outfall will serve as the primary discharge point for highly treated wastewater when the Brightwater treatment plant north of Woodinville begins operating in 2011. Now resting on the floor of Puget Sound a mile off Point Wells, it is one of the world’s deepest outfalls.

King County and Vanir Construction Management managed the project.

Other firms on the Brightwater outfall design-build team included Dayton & Knight, manager of outfall design; Anchor Environmental, the lead firm on environmental permitting; and Art Anderson Associates for structural engineering services. American Construction was a key subcontractor managing the pile driving and dredging.

The outfall design had to meet critical engineering specifications, including stringent seismic standards and hydraulic requirements to enable the treated effluent to mix effectively with waters of Puget Sound. The team also had to ensure the design would reduce impacts to the sensitive marine environment during both construction and operation.

Project representatives received the award at a ceremony held this morning at the Waterfront Marriott in Seattle.

This is the fifth award for the Brightwater outfall, which was earlier honored by the Seattle Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Construction Management Association of America, the Washington State Chapter of the American Public Works Association, and the Consulting Engineers of British Columbia.

Additional information, including dramatic video of the outfall installation, is available on the Web at http://your.kingcounty.gov/exec/news/2008/0909pipeline.aspx.

People enjoy clean water and a healthy environment because of King County's wastewater treatment program. The county’s Wastewater Treatment Division protects public health, the environment and the economy by serving 17 cities, 17 local sewer districts and more than 1.5 million residents in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Formerly called Metro, the regional clean-water agency now operated by King County has been preventing water pollution for nearly 50 years.

Related information

Brightwater Project

King County Wastewater Treatment