2013 GRAND AWARD WINNER

Category C: Schemmer Associates

Iowa DOT—US Highway 6 Broadway Viaduct

Iowa Department of Transportation needed a replacement structure for the U.S. Highway 6, Broadway Avenue Viaduct, a key transportation structure in the City of Council Bluffs. The project required an aggressive 11 month design schedule, and had significant coordination requirements involving the City of Council Bluffs, two railroad companies, multiple utility companies, citizens and adjacent businesses, and was to support a public art sculpture of major significance. The original viaduct, built in 1955, was replaced with a wider and taller structure that crosses over the Indian Creek conduit, several City streets and two railroads. Schemmer was retained by Iowa DOT to provide design services for the project. RDG Planning and Design and GSI were sub consultants to Schemmer, providing landscape architecture design and geotechnical engineering services. In addition, the project team collaborated extensively with the Iowa West Foundation and Ed Carpenter, the artist who designed and constructed a public art sculpture on the proposed viaduct.

This project had unique challenges and required distinctive engineering solutions including lightweight foamed cellular concrete fill under approach embankments to accommodate compressible soils; unique aesthetics including a public art sculpture and pedestrian plaza near the midpoint of the bridge; and use of post-grouted drilled shafts to economically support structure loads and limit vibrations to nearby historic structures. The use of lightweight foamed cellular concrete fill and post-grouted drilled shafts where the first in Iowa and the surrounding region. Approximately three blocks of mainline highway and several local city streets and frontage roads were also designed as part of the project. An extensive storm sewer system was also designed to collect surface drainage from the roadway, bridge, local streets and frontage roads. Schemmer worked with Iowa DOT to meet the goals of the new structure to maximize visual and functional appeal of the project. The project was opened to traffic in October 2011.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2012-2013 ACEC/NEBRASKA

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNERS

JEO Consulting Group was asked to evaluate innovative wastewater treatment technologies for The City of Wayne and selected the Aquarius Technologies Multi-Stage Activated Biological Process (MSABP) was selected for further review and ultimately determined to be the ideal technology for this project. JEO developed and operated an onsite pilot plant to observe the performance of the technology and demonstrate the process for city and state regulatory authorities. The MSABP removed 94% of the ammonia and carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand and 68% of total suspended solids without final clarification and 95% with clarification. The reduction in solids production meant that significantly less biosolids needed to be treated and disposed of in the final stages of the treatment process. The City’s past disposal method included storing sludge in a 27 acre lagoon that created significant odor complaints in the community, pumping approximately 200,000 gallons of sludge per day into the lagoon. The new facility produces only 10,000-20,000 gallons per day thus reducing electrical costs for pumping and eliminating the need for a storage lagoon.

2013 HONOR AWARD

Environmental restoration entails an unusually high degree of uncertainty related to the subsurface, which is not easily observed. To overcome technical hurdles, URS streamlined the implementation of a broad suite of traditional, innovative, and emerging technologies. The scale of regulatory risks required a sophisticated and heightened level of communication with multiple regulatory agencies. A centralized management approach was used, accessing URS’ technology champions and regulatory specialists.

URS’ performance exceeded Air Force expectations by providing a greater than 35% project cost savings and a life cycle cost reduction of 90%. URS compressed the cleanup schedule from the typical 10 to 20 years to six all while safely protecting human health and the environment, eliminating future liability to the Air Force, and minimizing impact to the military mission.

Category E: URS Corporation

ACC 4 Base Performance-Based Remediation

Client: Air Force Civil Engineer Center

Category F: JEO Consulting Group

Wayne Aquarius System Waste Water Treatment Facility

Client: City of Wayne, Nebraska

Western Nebraska Community College determined that their science laboratories and lecture hall needed renovation and wanted leading edge facilities to promote their higher education standards. The difficulty was designing within the existing 1969 architecture consisting of 3 circular pods clustered together. Pod C, the science labs, house physics, chemistry, anatomy and biology, with each room being pie shaped. Baker & Associates/Studio 120 Architecture designed the four lab rooms to be flexible allowing the college a more efficient use of the space. Within each room, all the utilities, such as gas, vacuum, power & data, are now accessed via overhead service panels. The utilities connect with quick disconnects to custom lab tables on the student work surface. Each table is designed to be daisy chained to other tables and rearranged to suit the teaching styles of each professor. Each lab is now up to code and safety standards to provide the students a safe place to learn. Another first for a community college is the installation of an “active learning” classroom. Implemented in a handful of large universities like MIT and UC Berkeley, active learning classrooms are teaching and learning spaces that allow professors to move their course design beyond just a lecture, reflecting current teaching styles that allow interaction between students and faculty and grouping of students.

Olsson’s design team was tasked with constructing a safe intersection that would not inhibit traffic capacity or access and that required less right-of-way and, with the close proximity of a middle school to the intersection, safety was a primary concern. With traffic volumes in excess of 52,000 vehicles per day, a multilane roundabout design was not the typical solution, but this intersection had many characteristics that made it a prime candidate for a multilane roundabout design. The multilane roundabout design would handle capacity, save thousands in paving costs, and provide safer intersection control when compared to the traditional signalized intersection. Olsson’s helped the city conduct an extensive public engagement program to achieve public buy-in. The money saved by selecting the multilane roundabout design over the signalized intersection was reinvested into the project in the form of safer pedestrian facilities: two pedestrian underpasses and two signalized pedestrian crossings were installed to ensure that students at the nearby middle school had a safe route to school.

2013 HONOR AWARD

2013 SMALL FIRM AWARD

Category H: Olsson Associates

14th & Superior Street Roundabout

Client: City of Lincoln, Nebraska

Category Small Firms: Baker and Associates

Western Nebraska Community College Science Lab Renovation

Client: Western Nebraska Community College

2013 Merit Awards

Category A: Studies, Research and Consulting Engineering Services

Category E: Environmental

Category F: Water and Wastewater

NBD Analyses & Strategy Plans Lamp Rynearson & Associates

Client: Greater Omaha Chamber

EPA Technical Assistance to Sutherland HDR Engineering

Client: Village of Sutherland, Nebraska

Ozone Action Day Campaign HDR Engineering,

Metropolitan Area Planning Agency

North Star Wetland Enhancement & Education Project EA Engineering, Science & Technology Inc.

Client: City of Lincoln, Nebraska

Combined Sewer Overflow & Downtown Streetscape HDR Engineering

Client: City of Plattsmouth, Nebraska

Continued on next page.

2013 MERIT AWARDS

Category G: Water Resources

Category K: Energy

Antelope Creek Improvements Olsson Associates

Client: Lower Platte South Natural Resources District

Nebraska Avenue Paving Project Kirkham Michael & Associates Client: City of York, Nebraska

Southwest 40th Street Thermal Energy Facility Farris Engineering

Client: District Energy Corporation

Congratulations to all of our firms that submitted a project in this year’s competition. Regarded as the academy awards of the engineering industry, these entries showcase our firms’ talents and expertise. Thank you to all of our member firms and the Board of Directors for supporting our industry and the Engineering Excellence Awards. Congratulations again to all the award winners and their clients. Thank you for sharing your evening with us to recognize these fabulous examples of engineering excellence.

Jackie McCullough

2013 Public Relations Awards

Charles Durham Award Young Professional Award

2013 PRIDE AWARDS

Gold Award—Category 2 Gold Award—Category 4

Alfred Benesch & Company Events

HDR Engineering Public Relations/Media Relations/

Crisis Management

2013 PRIDE

GRAND AWARD WINNER

Olsson Associates Marketing/Branding/Image Enhancement/Campaigns

Loren Steenson Lamp, Rynearson & Associates

Joe Flaxbeard Lamp, Rynearson & Associates