Frederick P. Powell, P.E., S.E., F.ASCE, a senior associate with Hazen and Sawyer (Hazen), in Atlanta, who has 21 years of experience designing and rehabilitating water treatment facilities throughout the central and eastern U.S., has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Powell serves on Hazen’s structural leadership team and manages a core group of engineers and designers. He is responsible for training new engineers on design calculations, drafting, revising project work, conducting observations of construction progress during site visits and collaborating with other Hazen engineers and engineering teams from other companies. Powell’s enhanced skill for developing innovative new standards and solving exceptionally difficult design problems, especially related to designs fitting within complex urban landscapes, has made him a leader in the field of water treatment facility design.
He has made significant contributions to award-winning projects in the civil engineering field. He collaborated on the design of the Croton Water Treatment Plant – the first such plant in New York City to use water filtration to improve drinking water for millions of people – which was constructed in a tight urban site necessitating a multilevel treatment layout to reduce its footprint. The design presented many structural challenges, including creating provisions for construction of the massive facility in a small area, accommodating large forces from soil and rock, and design of members to accommodate soil and vehicular loads.
The treatment plant receives flow from the Croton Watershed, the birthplace of ASCE in 1852. Powell is a fourth-generation ASCE member in his family.
He has also contributed to several other significant projects during his career, among them the Padergat Basin Combined Sewage Overflow, in Brooklyn, New York; Manayunk Combined Sewage Overflow, in Philadelphia; Quarles Water Treatment Plant, in Marietta, Georgia; and the Crooked Creek Water Reclamation Facility in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
Powell has provided structural engineering support for sustainability projects such as biogas generation, high-strength waste receiving stations, nutrient recovery, and the rehabilitation of treatment facilities. He developed and implemented a corrosion management protective-coatings program within budgetary constraints, and coauthored an article titled “Covering Your Assets” in The Georgia Operator, providing detailed recommendations for protective coating programs for water treatment plants.
He earned his B.S. in civil engineering in 1995 and his M.S in civil engineering (structural concentration) in 1997 from North Carolina State University. He is a licensed professional engineer in Georgia and a licensed structural engineer in Illinois.
