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Infrastructure + Get AlertsWater and wastewater utilities across the country are coming up with new ways to save money while still completing large projects. This type of out-of-the-box thinking is becoming more necessary as budgets shrink and regs tighten. Innovative technology, new management tools, and resourceful approaches are keys to success.
Bursting pipe, not budgets
In Billings, Mont., distribution and collections crews are doing most of the utility’s pipe bursting, which saves up to half the cost of hiring outside contractors.
“We started with some rental equipment,” says Scott Emerick, distribution and collections superintendent, talking about the decision to bring the work in-house. “Then we did some math with the local equipment supplier.”
The numbers were terrific — about $65 per foot for sewer lines, $105 per foot for water mains, compared to outside contractor costs of $200 to $300 per foot.
Emerick’s crew focuses on smaller, shallower lines. After bursting the old pipe, they pull HDPE pipe through the sewers and PVC through water mains.
Billings has acquired the necessary equipment, including a McElroy 412 fusing machine.
The city still hires out some of the pipe replacement project where depths are more than 12 to 13 feet, which is beyond the practical capability of city equipment.
Using outside contractors for pipe replacement also gives Emerick a chance to compare costs.
“We like the investment (in fusing and pipe bursting),” he says. “We’ve saved quite a bit. I’m surprised more municipalities aren’t doing more pipe bursting themselves.”
A lateral move
DC Water, which serves Washington, D.C., also does some underground work in-house. The utility is using trenchless CIPP technology and its own crews to replace about 100 sewer laterals per year.
According to Muminu Badmus, DC Water’s acting manager of sewer services and repair, the utility saves $1 million or more per year over conventional excavation methods.
“The average cost of a single lateral replacement so far is about $3,900 — or a $7,300 savings over open cut,” he said.
CIPP not only seals openings in pipe walls, preventing infiltration and root intrusion, but it eliminates surface disruption and restoration.
“As we expand the use of CIPP, we anticipate an annual savings of $2.9 million in capital spending based on the current replacement rate,” Badmus says.
Now in the third year of CIPP lateral lining, DC Water is convinced it made the right decision. Badmus has been calculating the costs compared to open cut, and reports saving $900,000 in 2012, $1.5 million in 2013, and more than $700,000 just a few months into the 2014 construction season.
Customer satisfaction is another benefit.
“Our customers love it,” Badmus says of the liner approach. “Not only are we saving money, we get in and get out. There’s no mess, no construction, no traffic controls. Imagine spending 65 percent less for the cost of a replacement, or installing 182 percent more at the same funding level simply by working smarter. All of our investment decisions should be that easy.”
“Not only that, we learn everything there is to know about the lift station when we do it ourselves” says Tom Hupp, manager of technical support in the public works department.
Huff says his crew has rebuilt three of the system’s 17 lift stations — from transducers to rails to replacing the pumps — as well as all the electrical and control work.He estimates overall savings of $40,000 to $50,000 per lift station over having the work done by outside contractors.
Outside the box
Nowhere has “rethinking the project” saved more than in Lynchburg, Va.
Having spent $250 million under a consent decree to separate sewers throughout its residential neighborhoods, the utility faced another $250 million expenditure to separate the sewers in its congested downtown area, which would create more than a few construction nightmares.
But instead, Lynchburg hired a consultant who performed a $3 million study and recommended the city solve the remainder of the overflow issues by maximizing the treatment plant’s wet weather capacity, including a new headworks designed to remove additional organics and an additional flow storage facility.
The approach is aimed at reducing more than half of current annual overflow at an estimated cost of about $60 million — a savings of $220 million, according to Tim Mitchell, director of water resources. Additionally, the state of Virginia awarded the city a $30 million grant for half of the remaining program, in part due to the new approach, which further ensured rapid completion of the program.
“By using this multipronged approach, we can achieve overall better water quality results in a fraction of the time — within the next decade — and at a significantly reduced cost,” says Mitchell. “When the program is complete, the system may still experience overflows, but it will be overflowing less often, at lower volumes and represent a higher quality of overflow.
“We decided to optimize the infrastructure we already had in place.”
