Then and Now: TRWD’s Kennedale Balancing Reservoir, Celebrating Generations of Service
Throughout our 125th anniversary year, our Then and Now series will share historical photos that connect to the work we still do today. Next, we look at a project that our teams have collaborated on for decades.
As part of an expansion project, the team was reviewing some of the early drawings and Senior CAD Designer Mike Cameron noticed that they looked mighty familiar.
He recognized the lines he had drawn by hand decades earlier, and the initials in the bottom right confirmed it: they were his.
Freese and Nichols has partnered with the Tarrant Regional Water District for many decades and has served the District through hundreds of projects. One is the current Kennedale Balancing Reservoir (KBR) expansion. Many members of the team that originally designed the reservoir still walk the Freese and Nichols halls.
To highlight the work we’ve done with TRWD, the team visited the project site to take photos and stand where our teams have worked across the years. Their message: appreciate the work you are doing, and appreciate those who have come before and those who will come after. Your work and its benefits span generations.
More about the Kennedale Balancing Reservoir
In 1968 plans were developed to build the first balancing reservoir and weir box on the KBR site. The original plans were part of the Cedar Creek System. The KBR site was selected because it is the high point between TRWD’s Cedar Creek Reservoir and the City of Fort Worth’s Rolling Hills WTP.
Lee Freese said this innovative design allows TRWD to pump into the KBR at an efficient rate while the City of Fort Worth draws water from the reservoir as it’s needed. Other projects over the decades included adding a second cell in 1978 and a second weir box in 1987, both as part of the Richland Chamber System, adding a “Flow Through Pipeline” in 1998 and relining of both cells in 1999.
The current project is expanding the site again. It is broken into the five phases below so the site can remain in operation during construction. When it is complete, it will accommodate additional water that will be delivered through the Integrated Pipeline (which FNI has also been involved in).
- Phase A: The Line J Pipeline (the First Envision Rated Pipeline), completed in 2014
- Phase B: Construction of the foundation for the third cell, completed in 2017
- Phase C: Construction of a pipeline to bypass the entire site during Phase D, substantially completed in fall of 2018
- Phase D: Demolition of a portion of the pipe on site and construction of the third cell and associated piping, planned for 2022 through 2024
- Phase E: Addition of inlets and outlets in the two existing cells and associated piping and other modifications followed by demolition of the weir boxes, planned for 2019 through 2021