Boring under commercial driveway
different water sources and blends. We are also planning for issues that may arise decades down the road. At the water treatment plant, we have allocated space for chemicals that we may need to add in the future.” Cost containment is another concern. Estimating the project’s construc- tion costs in the current environment with the prices of commodities, such as steel, fluctuating hasn’t been easy, notes Moore. “Considering that we will be using steel at the water treatment plant, elevated storage tank, booster pump station and possibly 95 miles of pipelines, it is a big component in the overall project costs,” said Moore. “We went through an eight-month process evaluating cost- saving measures that we could implement without impacting the level of service. Out of the nine measures that we have identified, we are implementing five. While we will not know the true costs until we receive bids, we are trying to hedge a little bit against what those future costs may be and finding ways to ensure we have the proper financing without over-burdening our rate payers.” Finally, easement acquisition has been a challenge. Alliance Water and LAN are negotiating and acquiring approximately 300 easements spanning 85 miles. With individual property owners having different requirements, addressing their concerns adequately and securing these easements has been a long process. In addition to negotiating ease- ments for the current project, Alliance Water is acquiring easements for future pipelines in these corridors. Conclusion Despite these challenges, the project is on schedule. The $12 million Phase 1A, which is currently under construction, will be completed at the end of this year. Phase 1B, which will cost $450 million, is sched- uled for completion in June 2023. Plans are also underway for Phases 1C and 1D that will provide an additional 8,100 acre-feet of water per year in the future. These phases are expected to be completed in 2035. Thanks to Alliance Water and its partners, future generations of central Texans will have access to good, clean water for the next 50 years and beyond.
Ductile Iron pipe inspection
Major firms involved in Phase 1B include: Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc. as program manager, LAN for easement acquisition, Blanton & Associates for environmental services, LNV Inc. for raw water system design, Walker Partners for water treatment plant design, Freese & Nichols Inc. for pump station design, and Plummer for the elevated storage tank design. The five segments of the treated water pipelines are being designed by LAN, Walker Partners, BGE, Inc., Freese & Nichols, and K Friese + Associates. Project Challenges The scale and complexity of the project has created numerous chal- lenges. Chief among them is the coordination required between the different water entities and the various firms involved in the project. With a full-time staff of only two people, Alliance Water outsourced the project’s design and hired Kimley-Horn to manage the program and track all the moving pieces. “From producing design standards to ensuring cohesion among the design packages, the program requires a lot of coordination,” said Moore. “We want to ensure that even the valves are of the same type, so we are not stocking a lot of spare parts for different equipment. The coordination needed for the different pipeline segments, the easement acquisition, the system hydraulics and other elements of this project has been a tremendous day-to-day challenge.” Water quality was another challenge. To ensure the new water source could blend with the customers’ existing water supplies, Alliance Water and the project team spent considerable time in the preliminary design phase. This included gathering data on the existing water sources, de- termining where the participants received treated water, understanding the chemical makeup of these water supplies and then designing a treatment regime suitable for every participant. “Our goal is to ensure that our sponsors require little, if any, additional treatment when they receive our water,” said Moore. “We worked hard to find the right mixture in our treatment techniques. We are talking about a geographical area that spans 35 miles and they all have slightly
TRAVIS MICHEL, P.E., is an associate and infrastructure manager at Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, Inc. (LAN), a national planning, engineering, and program management firm. He can be reached at TMMichel@lan-inc.com.
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csengineermag.com
august 2020
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