Houston Waterworks Team Reaches Major Milestones: 8.3 Million Work-Hours with Zero Lost Time Accidents and the Completion of Phase 1

HOUSTON— The Houston Waterworks Team (HWT), a joint venture of CDM Smith and Jacobs, success­fully completed Phase 1 of the $1.8 billion Northeast Water Purifi­ca­tion Plant (NEWPP) Expansion Project for the city of Houston in December 2023. In addition to this design phase achievement, the JV reached a milestone of over 8.3 million hours safely worked. Our firm’s commitment to on-schedule delivery as well as our devotion to safety both shine in reaching these extra­or­di­nary milestones in a massive team effort.  

The NEWPP Expansion Project is the largest progressive design-build project of its kind in the United States. The design utilizes multiple water treatment strategies tailored to the region’s unique range of needs. To illustrate the sheer scale of the project, the treatment plant has 220K cubic yards of reinforced concrete for its facility structures, the world’s largest centrifuges for drinking water sludge thickening and dewatering, and 29 large capacity vertical turbine pumps, ranging in size from 25 million gallons per day (MGD) to 75 MGD. The project’s intake pump station withdraws raw water from Lake Houston and delivers it about 1.5 miles away to NEWPP. The project requires remarkable engineering from our Technical Services Unit and unwavering dedication from both CDM Construc­tors Inc. and our North America Unit.  

The recently completed Phase 1 increases the production capacity of the NEWPP by 80 MGD, doubling its capacity from 80 to 160 MGD. Phase 1 also included the design and construc­tion of the new water facility, as well as start-up, commis­sion­ing and interim operation activities. The construc­tion and commis­sion­ing work continues in Phase 2, which is scheduled to be completed in 2025. Phase 2 will increase the overall facility production capacity from 160 MGD to 400 MGD. 

“The NEWPP Expansion Project will decrease the region’s use of groundwater from 70% to 40% by moving the raw water source to surface water from nearby Lake Houston. The water treatment plant will help the city to deliver much larger production rates of high-quality finished water, despite a broad range of surface water quality,” says Randy Rogers, PE, BCEE, HWT chief engineer and CDM Smith Technical Services Unit President. 

With 1.5K+ workers on site daily at the project’s peak, health and safety has been the foremost concern since the beginning of this massive project. More than 10,000 people have gone through the HWT’s safety indoc­tri­na­tion training to be eligible to access and work on site, and as of December 2023, the team has safely completed 8.3 million work hours with zero lost time accidents.  

"This incredible safety milestone could not have been achieved without the commitment from each and every person on site—from the skilled labor to executive management," said senior vice president and project construc­tion manager Michael Dzubnar, PE, DBIA. "This achievement is a clear testament of our safety profes­sion­als’ and the entire Houston Waterworks Team’s adoption and rein­force­ment of effective safety culture." 

While maintaining this stellar safety record, HWT also success­fully kept the project on-budget and on-schedule all while navigating the global pandemic, rampant cost escalation, materials and equipment scarcity and preparing for and enduring multiple hurricanes and tropical storms.  

CDM Smith is a privately owned engineering and construc­tion firm providing legendary client service and smart solutions in water, environment, trans­porta­tion, energy, and facilities. Passionate about our work and invested in each other, we are inspired to think and driven to solve the world’s envi­ron­men­tal and infra­struc­ture challenges.