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Revamping Garland’s Wastewater Treatment Plants for a Growing Area
The Rowlett Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant's cake loading and dewatering facility.
T
he City of Garland, Texas, provides wastewater services to over 320,000 customers in a large residential area north of Dallas. Like many wastewater service providers in the region, Garland is dealing with a rapid growth in population and urban density. The increased demand has required major renovations to its wastewater treatment plants, both to increase their capacity and to cut down on unpleasant odors from preventing development around the treatment plants. In this interview, Malcolm Parker, the superintendent of Garland’s Rowlett Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, speaks with Municipal Water Leader about the process of revamping the plant and how it led to a National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) award.
Malcolm Parker: I started with the City of Garland in wastewater treatment in July 1986. The City of Garland has two wastewater treatment plants, Rowlett Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and Duck Creek Water Treatment Plant. I started at Duck Creek and worked there for 6 months as a
24 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about the City of Garland’s water and wastewater services. Malcolm Parker: As I mentioned, we currently have two wastewater treatment plants, Rowlett Creek and Duck Creek. The Rowlett Creek plant’s design capacity is 24 million gallons a day (MGD), and Duck Creek is a 40 MGD plant. Between the two plants, we employ about 60 people. Our customer base is well over 320,000 people. We serve the cities of Garland, Rowlett, Sachse, and portions of Dallas, Richardson, and Sunnyvale. That puts our service area at over 100 square miles. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about the history of the Rowlett Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. Malcolm Parker: The Rowlett Creek plant was built in 1952. At that time, it was a trickling-filter activated-sludge plant. Over the past 70 years, it has undergone three major
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CITY OF GARLAND.
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
wastewater operator. Then I was transferred to the Rowlett Creek plant and have been here for going on 34 years.
