The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Washington, D.C., announces its selection of 2022 Engineering Excellence Award winners, recognizing the most outstanding project achievements of the engineering profession in the nation.

Pictured L to R: Robin Greenleaf, ACEC Chair; Gil Hantzsch, MSA CEO; Andrew Skog, MSA Senior Project Engineer; Linda Bauer Darr, ACEC President/CEO (photo credit to Risdon Photography)

The City of Brodhead, Wisconsin, and MSA Professional Services, Inc. (MSA) were together chosen to receive an Honor Award for the community’s Water Quality Trading project, selected from 195 project submissions from the United States. The Honor Award is a prestigious distinction and represents exceptional engineering achievements. Winners are determined by a panel of 25-30 judges, appraised and ranked based on achievement in five categories: uniqueness and/or innovative application of new or existing techniques; future value to, and enhancing public awareness/enthusiasm for the engineering profession; social, economic, and sustainable development considerations; complexity; and successful fulfillment of client/owner’s needs, including schedule and budget.

The City of Brodhead Water Quality Trading (WQT) program is a multi-faceted solution for achieving compliance with stringent phosphorus water quality based effluent limits (WQBELs) at the City’s wastewater treatment facility. In lieu of a costly tertiary phosphorus removal upgrade, City officials elected to instead offset phosphorus loadings to its local receiving waters, improving the landscape in the upstream watershed to reduce potentially harmful nutrient runoff.

“The trading program successfully offsets the City’s total phosphorus load by approximately 1,090 pounds per year, and annually generates 390 pounds of WQT credits,” shares MSA Senior Project Engineer Andrew Skog. “The project included the repair of over 62 eroding streambanks, major upgrades to a local small dairy, including runoff diversions and manure storage construction, and establishes long-term nutrient management practices on approximately 500 acres of crop fields. The entire process was extremely collaborative and we’re proud to have established this new and creative long-term solution for the community.” The City of Brodhead program saves the city approximately $3.8 million in lifecycle costs as compared to making significant investments in upgrades to the existing wastewater treatment facility.

“MSA and the City of Brodhead are immensely honored to receive this recognition,” remarked Gil Hantzsch, president and CEO at MSA. “Thank you to ACEC Wisconsin for first recognizing this project at the state level, which allowed it to advance to the national stage, and to the national award jury for celebrating the innovative solutions of our country’s professional engineers. We are thrilled to congratulate our partners in the City of Brodhead and extend our congratulations to all the other award winners as well.”

Award winners were formally honored at the 2022 Engineering Excellence Awards Gala May 24, 2022, in Washington, D.C. as part of the ACEC Annual Convention.