Volume 12, Number 4     July/August 2009 NEWS A New Green Machine WWTPs test algae as tools to remove nutrients, possibly generate revenue For years, the wastewater industry has speculated about the potential of using algae to generate lipids that could be converted into a wide range of biofuels. But most utilities have steered away from such ventures, deterred by the amount of land required to grow algae and the high costs associated with extracting the oil. Though most wastewater treatment plants still aren’t convinced, some facilities have decided within the past few years to “test the waters.” With the help of university, government, and private-industry scientists, they are conducting onsite tests with algae to determine how feasible, useful, and profitable a renewable energy enterprise could be.

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Turning (Waste) Water Into Wine?
A Colorado wastewater treatment plant plans to enter the wine business

It’s not every day that you’ll find “wastewater” and “wine” in the same sentence. But such is the case in Clifton, Colo., where Brian Woods, an “outside-the-box thinker,” has a plan to convert some of a Colorado sanitation district’s reclaimed land into a moneymaking vineyard.

Woods is manager of Clifton Sanitation District, a small wastewater district that has just recently completed a new $23 million treatment plant for its 18,000 customers in western Colorado. Now the district is closing the old wastewater lagoons it formerly used for treatment and is reclaiming the land for other uses.

FEATURES

Embrace Change — Not Change Orders
An owner’s perspective on getting projects done
Xavier Irias and Elizabeth Bialek

The combination of increasingly complex projects and slim contractor margins has created a perfect storm for costly construction disputes. But as East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD; Oakland, Calif.) has discovered, the chances of those disputes occurring can be reduced through the use of practical dispute-resolution techniques.

Disputes between owners and contractors may be inevitable. Both owners and contractors benefit, however, when they proactively work together to reduce the number and magnitude of disputes and resolve those that do occur quickly and fairly. EBMUD has discovered four tools to be particularly helpful in this regard.

Walking the Talk
During two decades of large expenditures, the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering has learned several important lessons in capital program delivery
R. Tim Haug, Ken R. Redd, Wayne A. Lawson, and Harshad B. Shah

In the 1980s and 1990s, the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering implemented two large wastewater capital programs, one to cease ocean discharge of sludge and one to achieve full secondary treatment of all wastewater. The former experienced high change-order costs during onstruction, and the latter had several construction contracts end in protracted litigation.

The wastewater capital program managers learned that it’s not the award amount that counts; it’s the total project cost, including everything from project delivery costs to change-order costs to the final cost of construction. In addition to that, litigation can seriously affect the cost of total project delivery.

The bureau undertook numerous organizational changes, which have demonstrated very positive results during the past 10 years. The wastewater program has been virtually free of construction litigation, and change orders have averaged less than 4% during the course of $1.5 billion worth of construction.

Measuring Social Impact and Service Equity at Seattle Public Utilities
Elizabeth S. Kelly and Michael Davis

Two identical sewer lines are on the verge of collapse — one located
in a quiet, upscale neighborhood and the other in a low-income community. Which one should a utility repair first? At Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), that question and many more are becoming easier to answer as a result of a new approach to asset management.

Since 2002, when SPU began implementing a comprehensive asset management program (see “Five Years of Asset Management at Seattle Public Utilities,” UE, September–October 2008), the agency has considered the “triple bottom line” when making asset management decisions. This means looking not only at a decision’s financial cost but its environmental and social impacts as well.



BRIEFS

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