The Blue River Wastewater Treatment Plant is Kansas City’s largest treatment facility, which opened in the early 1960s and was last upgraded in 1987. The plant processes and cleans approximately 98 percent of the solid waste material in KC’s wastewater, an average of 75 million gallons each day. It’s slated to undergo reconstruction to incorporate advanced wastewater treatment processes and technologies, and will be renamed the Blue River Biosolids Facility.

The new facility will be the first plant of its kind in the Midwest to employ a Thermal Hydraulic Process (THP), which is faster, more efficient and sustainable. THP recycles human and domestic waste into a usable, Class A product that may be used as a fertilizer, while saving energy and reducing waste.

Parson + Associates (P+A) plays an important role in managing the communications for this $100 million project, such as translating complicated, technical language into easy-to-understand content for a variety of target audiences. We also created and maintain the project website (http://blueriverbiosolids.com), and capture drone footage and pictures of the plant site. (A short sample of our drone footage is available by playing the video to the right.)

Project Team

City of Kansas City, MO Water Department – KC Water

• Carollo
• Jacobs
• 3T – Design and Development, LLC
• Custom Engineering
• Taliaferro and Browne, Inc.
• Trekk Design Group, LLC
• TSi Geotechnical, In.
• Wellner Architects

Year(s) of Project

June 2018 – Current