Bohannan Huston Wins Engineering Excellence Award

January 23 , 2008 - Bohannan Huston, Inc. (BHI) has won an ACEC New Mexico 2008 Engineering Excellence Award for its work on the Rio Grande River Crossing Project for the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA). BHI’s successful work on the project, which was part of the larger San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project, won the top Engineering Excellence Award in the Water and Wastewater category.

ABCWUA had recommended BHI for the award, citing the excellence of BHI’s design and construction phase services and overall performance on the project, which posed many technical, environmental, and scheduling challenges. Specifically, BHI had to design a redundant large diameter, high-pressure pipeline system that 1) could be installed under the Rio Grande at a sufficient depth to avoid potential scour damage from floodwaters in the river, 2) required minimal private property acquisition, and 3) minimally impacted the natural habitat of the cottonwood forest and endangered species in the river and east Bosque.

After careful planning, construction began in August 2004, proceeded during two construction seasons, and was completed in June 2006.

This year’s Engineering Excellence Award winners will be honored at a dinner gala on April 18. Virtually every technical group at BHI contributed personnel and resources to the project, with the Water Resources and Construction groups, respectively, leading the design and construction inspection efforts.

For more information about the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project, visit http://www.sjcdrinkingwater.org/