When Less is More: A Wastewater Treatment Consolidation Case Study

Purpose In 2021, the City of Pearland, Texas (City) was facing a $200M problem: two of the City's oldest and most critical wastewater assets (the Barry Rose and Longwood Water Reclamation Facilities) were reaching the end of their useful lives. Additionally, construction costs were inflating unpredictably and incurring concern over utility rate increases, and updates to the 2020 FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) changed the floodway at the Barry Rose Water Reclamation Facility (WRF) making the site less sustainable for an expansion. The scale and complexity of these problems caused the City to reevaluate the previous plan to consolidate the Longwood WRF and send flows to an expanded Barry Rose WRF. This reevaluation prompted the City to begin a Water Reclamation Facility Consolidation Study in June of 2021 with the goal of identifying the best overall value alternative that would consolidate Longwood, address the condition of Barry Rose, phase the project to mitigate near term rate impacts, minimize lifecycle cost, and invest in a resilient, sustainable WRF site. This study was conducted over seven months of collaborative workshops with multiple stakeholders and performed an objective comparison of five alternatives that considered multiple treatment sites, conveyance routes, and infrastructure phasing. The study resulted in a unanimous recommendation that not only saved the City over $12M in near term capital costs, but also efficiently and cost effectively addressed the condition of the City's aging infrastructure and helped position them to serve future growth. The major themes of this presentation are included below. Conference attendees will walk away with insights and guidelines for consolidation studies as well as methods for determining a plan of action when multiple stakeholders are involved. This presentation will showcase how Pearland addressed the challenges they faced and will present factors for other utilities and consultants to consider when evaluating costly infrastructure consolidation alternatives. A Collaborative Approach Multiple stakeholder groups were involved throughout all phases of this study and collaborated for seven months via multi-hour workshops and numerous additional meetings, phone calls, and site visits. City staff of all levels and across multiple departments participated including City management, the Engineering and Capital Projects leadership team, Public Works operations staff, and members of the finance department and acquisition management teams. The project team also included the City's Wastewater Master Planning consultant, Freese and Nichols, Inc. (FNI) and teaming partner, Plummer; and the City's Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR), McCarthy Building Companies. Pearland's City Council also played a key role in the study, as effective utility plans are backed by a governing body and involve public engagement. Pearland leveraged both groups of stakeholders to effectively communicate the value of the utility's services and accomplish buy-in on the Consolidation Plan. This presentation will discuss the key role each stakeholder played in identifying a cost-effective consolidation alternative, and the interdependence of these roles. This presentation will also discuss how the partnership between Pearland's staff at all levels, FNI, Plummer, and McCarthy resulted in a strong business case for the final project recommendation. Determining a Plan of Action With multiple stakeholders involved, coming to a unanimous decision can be a challenge. This presentation will discuss the method for assessing the alternatives in addition to the visualization tools that were utilized to assist the project team in coming to a unanimous recommendation. The presentation will also discuss the process for keeping stakeholders engaged and present tools that can be applied to utilities everywhere. Take-Aways Pearland's case study serves as a compelling success story for effective stakeholder engagement for utilities and consultants everywhere. Conference attendees will walk away with ideas on how to employ stakeholder engagement methods and visualization tools to develop strong business cases for managing their utilities.