Plano Spring Creek Lift Station Improvement

Plano’s Spring Creek Lift Station No. 2 was originally designed for a firm capacity of 60 million gallons per day (mgd); however, it had never been able to pump more than 32 mgd, even with subsequent design and construction projects to increase capacity, due to vibration and cavitation issues related to intake hydraulics. During the preliminary improvements design, Plummer performed a desktop analysis to develop a force main alignment for the station by analyzing factors such as environmental impacts, socioeconomic impacts, easement acquisition, cost, constructability, and maintenance. To increase the influent capacity to the station, Plummer designed a 30-inch diameter PVC gravity interceptor to parallel the existing 36-inch interceptor. This design included manhole sizing calculations as well hydraulic calculations to determine pipe size and slope. The design improvements have an ultimate capacity of 74 mgd.

Plummer assisted in the station’s design improvements including pump suction and discharge piping, a parallel discharge header, and meter vault knife gate valves. Plummer also helped develop a detailed construction sequencing plan to keep the station operational during construction and minimize bypass pumping. The project scope included decommissioning Plano Spring Creek Lift Station No. 1, so Plummer designed a decommissioning plan that included an 8-inch PVC gravity diversion pipeline to divert flows to Lift Station No. 2. The 8-inch pipeline was installed by boring underneath a Dallas Area Rapid Transit railroad.