Yesterday, I joined my fellow PC Construction employee owners at WEFTEC 2026 to accept the Water Environment Federation’s Project Excellence Award for the Piscataway WRRF Bioenergy Project. This recognition comes just about one year following completion and marks the project’s seventh regional/national award to date.
This groundbreaking project for WSSC Water in Accokeek, Maryland, has completely transformed how the utility handles biosolids while significantly reducing the volume, increasing quality, and capturing digester gas to help power the facility. The facility is projected to generate approximately $4 million per year in revenue, save WSSC customers approximately $3.4 million per year in operating costs, and further reduce WSSC Water’s greenhouse gas emissions by 15%. It is the largest and most technically advanced project WSSC Water has constructed in its 106-year history and is one of only seven in the country to incorporate an advanced Thermal Hydrolysis Process (THP) to efficiently transform biosolids.
I’ve never been prouder of a project than this one, and the fact that our entire industry recognizes it as a tremendous success makes it even more rewarding. The project has also received honors from DBIA Mid-Atlantic, Associated General Contractors (AGC), Engineering News-Record (ENR), Water Environment Federation, and Washington Building Congress, and was a key factor in PC being named ENR’s Mid-Atlantic Contractor of the Year.
Major components of the work included the construction of a 45-cubic-yard cake receiving facility for sludge imported from four other facilities; two 500-cubic yard cake storage silos to feed the new 92.6 dtpd Cambi B6-4 THP; a new solids building containing seven two-meter three-belt presses; two new 1.5-million-gallon anaerobic digesters; and a new digester control building.
We are proud to share this honor with WSSC Water and our project partners – Stantec, Hazen and Sawyer, and HDR. Congratulations to the entire team who brought this exceptional facility to life!