Title
Discuss and consider approving the updated Water and Wastewater Master Plans.
Summary
Discuss and consider recommending approval of the Water and Wastewater Master Plans. The purpose of the Water and Wastewater Master Plan is to execute an assessment of existing City infrastructure and to develop a comprehensive Capital Improvement Plan for the water treatment and distribution and wastewater treatment and collection systems.
Garver was selected as the consultant to develop the Water Master Plan and STV (CP&Y) was selected as the consultant to develop the Wastewater Master Plan. These consultants were selected to define the future needs of the City and determine commitments for water and wastewater services to be included in the City's Five Year Capital Improvement Plan.
While the City has conducted annual updates to the 2020 Water and Wastewater Master Plans to ensure we reflected updated costs during dynamic economic activity across the country, City staff has not conducted a full update to these Master Plans. A large change to the Water Master Plan was conducted with the plan being to serve the City's existing Water Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) and to not expand that existing boundary any farther than it currently extends. The previoius Water Master Plan from 2020 assumed that the City would provide water to a much larger service area than the current CCN covers. This change reflects a more realistic approach to how CCN boundaries are dictated and provides realistic expectations for Capital Improvement Plans to not overextend the City's water service area. This 5-year update reflects continued operational improvements to rehabilitate aging water infrastructure and address areas where unaccounted for water loss will continue to be an issue as this infrastructure continues to age while also addressing continued growth within the City's core areas within the water CCN. A large change that is outlined in the 5-year update to the City's Wastewater Master Plan is the change in the overly conservative nature of average wastewater flows to ensure that we "right-size" our gravity infrastructure and not "overbuild" the conveyance infrastructure to serve the City's wastewater service area. The previous 5-year wastewater master plan was incredibly conservative which could create issues with wastewater lines being oversized for the area to serve. While City staff have managed this on a case-by-case basis for capital projects, the updated Master Plan ensures that City staff are not needing to pay a second consultant to confirm flow and pipe sizes for capital projects outlined in the wastewater master plan.
A large change to both the Water and Wastewater Master Plans for this 5-year update is the normalization of growth projections that match what the City has experienced over the past decade for growth within the service areas. The 2020 Water and Wastewater Master Plan assumed a very aggressive growth projection within the 5-year and 10-year outlook. While growth is continuing to trend upwards, these updated Master Plans normalize that growth projection to be more in line with what is actually happening on the ground and not just conceptually. The forecast for the areas that are within both the City's Water and Wastewater CCN is more inline with what the City has experienced at roughly 4% annual connection growth. The areas that are only within our Wastewater CCN see a much larger growth rate in the 5-year forecast given the relative undeveloped nature of those areas, but they start to slow down over time as they are developed and as the water needs of that area are realized for the water providers within those regions (Manville WSC and Aqua WSC) who are working to expand their water supply needs currently.
Both master plans confirm the operations of each system to enhance reliability, efficiency and capability to service existing and new customers well into the future. Adoption of the Water Master Plan and Wastewater Master Plan provides the foundation documents for the City’s CIP, and maintains the intent to meet service demands as the City continues to grow. These master plans support the Comprehensive Plan and the City’s Strategic Plan Infrastructure pillar, with the goals for robust and resilient water and wastewater systems. These master plans support the Infrastructure pillar of the City’s Strategic Plan, with the goal of providing robust and resilient water and wastewater infrastructure systems.
History
Both the Water and Wastewater Master Plans were updated in July of 2023 and incorporated into the comprehensive plan by Ordinance 1601-23-09-12.
Staff Recommendation
Staff recommends approval of the Water Master Plan and Wastewater Master Plan and inclusion of these elements into the Aspire 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
Drafter
Elizabeth Hoeft, P.E., Utility Engineer