Master Plan and Program Management

Lake Havasu City is situated on the Colorado River in west central Arizona. The city’s 36,000-acre planning area supports a current population of 50,000 with buildout projected at 96,000. At the beginning of the program approximately 20 percent of the population was served by the existing sanitary sewer collection system, with the remainder on individual septic tanks. Monitoring wells located within 1 mile of the lake have indicated high levels of nitrates, which prompted the ADEQ to establish several building ban areas.

The initial system consisted of two treatment facilities minimal collection. Treatment plant capacity totaled 1.8 million gallons per day (MGD) initially. Lake Havasu City’s 208 plan does not permit treatment plant effluent discharge to Lake Havasu; therefore, effluent had to be discharged by reuse alternatives such as golf course irrigation and percolation ponds.

The city retained Burns & McDonnell to perform master planning services to study the city’s wastewater treatment, collection facilities, and reuse/reclamation. The master plan reviewed the entire planning area and evaluated alternative collection systems, location of treatment facilities for regional growth and providing a regional network effluent conveyance, reuse and disposal. All options were evaluated for performance and cost.

• Master planning for 20 years
• Program management
• Program compression to 11 years
• 11-year capital improvement
• Adjusted for growth location patterns
• Adjusted for rate of growth increases
• Adjusted to meet escalating construction costs
• CIP funding data development
• Developed design standards
• Environmental documentation
• APP and regulatory permit applications
• Developed special ADEQ program approval procedures
• Developed construction standards
• Contracting procedures
• Scheduling
• Estimating
• Pre-construction site verification
• Post-construction site verification
• Construction management and administration
• Project closeout, startup and regulatory documentation services
• Resident services
• Legal notary services
• Public meetings
• Project information/legal packet mailings
• Resident inspections
• Construction notification/project phone hot line
• Project Web page
• Design
• Bidding
• Construction inspection

Planning resulted in the need for a management plan to provide infrastructure improvements and expansion totaling $463 million. A capital improvement program (CIP) was developed, which included design and construction of infrastructure made up of 79 individual projects over an 11-year period. This CIP served as the roadmap for the program and also became the basis for assembling the annual funding request for these CIP projects. This included providing all of the technical background to support the annual expenditure of WIFA loan or bond market funds for these projects.

A comprehensive management structure was required for execution of these projects within the limited time schedule available. Program design standards were developed for the projects. Special details were also incorporated into the standards to be used in the drawings sets to provide consistency throughout the program. Based on the size of the overall program and the time frame involved considerable effort was made to coordinate with ADEQ. Standardized design reports were developed for pre-construction approvals and likewise, new construction forms were developed to permit sequential use of gravity sewers as they were under construction. This process has served as a model for other such projects with ADEQ.

Burns & McDonnell’s services during this program have incorporated significant public involvement activities. Some of these included multiple public meetings during the design phase, legal and informational packet mailings for construction access to every property and ultimately filing with the county as a legal document, construction notifications and a project phone hot line to answer questions or provide emergency followup on construction related issues. This including hanging door hangers on every residence to notify on construction start dates for their area and provide assistance with vehicular traffic and in some cases, physical assistance with the handicapped.

An equally extensive effort was made to standardize the bidding and construction activities. Procedures were developed and incorporated into the contract documents to make the process for each project as similar as possible. Considerable time was spent on creating a consistent method for developing construction estimates and quantities appropriate for installing gravity sewer pipelines where none previously existed, but all other utilities were in place.

Scheduling was equally important for the entire program. A Primavera program schedule was developed for each year. It included management, design, permitting, construction and project closeout. It was set up to input the detailed Primavera construction schedule provided by each contractor.

Verification of conditions for both pre- and post-construction required a major effort. Still photographs and video were recorded for both periods of time to accurately reflect the quality of the work performed by the contractor, particularly with respect to yard restoration. Weekly construction progress reports were made to the city council and local newspaper to inform the public about completed work and scheduled future work to ease traffic congestion. Monthly program meetings were held with city staff to coordinate and plan every facet of the project.