Hubbell, Roth and Clark, Inc. has served as consulting engineers to the City of Rochester for over 36 years. One of the unique projects HRC completed for the City was a well water treatment plant for iron removal.

Through a referendum, City residents voted to build a new iron removal treatment plant instead of connecting to the City of Detroit 's water system. HRC helped provide the planning necessary for the City to evaluate the alternatives.

The treatment facility has a capacity of 3.5 MGD. The facility consists of five well pumps which discharge to two induced draft aerators. There the iron is oxidized from a soluble ferrous state to an insoluble ferric form. The precipitated ferric iron is then pumped with high head pumps through six (three double cell units) pressure sand filters to remove the iron precipitate. Following filtration the treated water is chlorinated using gaseous chlorine.

Some unique features of the project are that the filter backwash is discharged to an existing abandoned underground concrete reservoir. HRC designed a decant pump system to discharge the supernatant backwash to the nearby creek after the solids have settled in the tank. When solids build up in the tank (about once per year), they are pumped by portable pump to a second larger reservoir where they dry and can be stored indefinitely.

HRC designed a simple control system to control the high service pumps from the level in the elevated storage tank. An automatic dialer was provided to telephone alarms during unmanned periods to prearranged locations within the City, to notify personnel of system problems or power outages. An emergency generator was provided to power the facility during power outages.