Ramping Up to Efficiently Deliver Capital Projects to Meet Bankruptcy and Regulatory Deadlines – Jefferson County, Alabama

Jefferson County Alabama currently owns and maintains approximately 3,100 miles of gravity sewer, 176 pump stations, and 7 major WWTPs. However, before 1996, the County only owned and operated 570 miles of trunk sewers and 33 pump stations. All other assets were owned and operated by 21 municipalities. A 1996 Consent Decree required the County to take over all of these systems and to eliminate overflows. In subsequent years, the County spent a significant amount of money making system improvements and, with a downturn in the economy went into bankruptcy in 2011. Despite significant reductions in overflow volumes, there are numerous problems remaining including wet weather and dry weather overflows.The set-up of the Asset Management program and the prioritization process coincided with and assisted with the removal the County from Bankruptcy. The result was a detailed plan of spending, which included specified spending in the collection system, rate increases and debt service payments. With the County out of Bankruptcy and a prioritized program framework in place the County needed to be able to implement their CIP without the ability to hire new staff.In order to ensure effective implementation of the CIP, all individual projects are added to an Oracle P6 master schedule, with each project having a standardized project life cycle, from design consultant selection to construction completion.Multiple Key Performance Indicators are in place, to ensure both effective implementation of the CIP, and the collection system performance. The result so far has been a marked reduction in system overflows.