Water Design-Build Council Blog

Upper Trinity Regional Water District’s (UTRWD) Riverbend Water Reclamation Plant (WRP), located in north central Texas near the city of Aubrey, needed to increase its capacity from 2 million gallons per day (mgd) annual average daily flow to 4 mgd with a peak flow rate of 16 mgd. This expansion was required to keep up with the economic growth occurring to the north of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. In order to increase capacity, a new influent pump station, new screening and grit removal headworks, a new sludge pump station building, modification of sequential batch reactor basins to conventional aeration basins with ballasted activated sludge, and new secondary clarifiers were required.

New York’s Governor, Andrew Cuomo, made headlines recently when he submitted a draft budget to expand the use of the design-build project delivery approach.  If the budget is approved later this year, New York state agencies would be able to move infrastructure projects forward using design-build.

Equipment vendors and technology suppliers are quickly becoming important players in collaborative delivery for the water industry. As technologies become more advanced, equipment suppliers offer a wide portfolio of state-of-the-art solutions with respect to operations, service impacts, and long-term performance.

It’s political season and the news is filled with commentary on liberals and conservatives and... progressives. So what exactly is so progressive about progressive design-build?

Well, it's no surprise, but the label for this valuable delivery method doesn’t have any political meaning! Instead, it’s all about evolving the design-build process to meet the needs of owners that could not use – or preferred not to use – fixed price design-build:

Why does it take a crisis or public outrage to motivate policy officials to take action on water and wastewater issues? In 2016, the water quality and compliance issues impacting the public’s health and environment – with the crisis in Flint, Michigan, serving as a prime example – should not be happening. 

The outlook for progress in the water infrastructure industry looks very bright; and Black & Veatch's 2015 Strategic Directions Report further confirms that collaborative delivery models such as design-build and construction management-at-risk are at the forefront of making it become a reality. 

This report, which surveyed 454 qualified utility, municipal, commercial, and community stakeholders, more than half of which responding were utilities, found that they were either currently using, or already considering the use of, design-build as part of the delivery strategy to implement their capital programs.

The Technical Challenge

The City of Goodyear, Arizona, is one of the fastest growing communities in the U.S. with an average annual growth rate of 15 to 20 percent. With growth exceeding the existing infrastructure capabilities, the City developed a program to quickly grow their potable water delivery capacity.  The brackish groundwater from local perched aquifers also required treatment for potable use in most cases. 

Partnering to Promote Best Design-Build Practices in Pima County, Arizona

CH2M HILL (CH2M) partnered with Pima County to implement one of the world’s most advanced water reclamation facilities: the Agua Nueva Water Reclamation Facility. As the single-entity designer, builder and operator, CH2M combined its integrated delivery capabilities and penchant for technical excellence to create an industry-first wastewater treatment process that saves taxpayers’ money and conserves resources in Arizona’s water-starved climates. 

When was the last time you took the time to write a message to your local politician, addressing a topic near and dear to your heart?

Now is the time for us, as caring residents of our communities to stand for the organizations that we support. Now is the time to tell our elected representatives in Congress and the Government that it is time to pass legislation that supports funding, building and maintaining the nation’s water and wastewater infrastructure.