North Penn Water Authority (NPWA), located in Bucks and Montgomery Counties,
Pennsylvania, serves roughly 27,000 customers. NPWA oversees a system with
435 miles of water mains. The distribution system includes five pressure zones that
receive water from 23 production well sources and a surface water treatment plant to
meet an average daily demand of about nine million gallons (MG). Other facilities within
the distribution system include seven water storage tanks and five booster pumping
stations.
NPWA and CH2M HILL, in conjunction with Optimatics, conducted a master-planning
project that included the development of hydraulic and water quality models and
optimization using genetic algorithms (GAs) to support the development of a cost-efficient
and defensible Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). This master-planning approach
was utilized to consider a wide range of improvement options to meet future demand
conditions while obtaining the most cost-effective and hydraulically efficient plan.
The careful construction of the master plan was important to NPWA in order to
adequately serve a fully developed service area by the Year 2030. This service area
growth and development is projected to increase the existing average daily water demand
from approximately 9 MG to 13 MG under full buildout conditions, with maximum day
demands reaching 19 MG.
After constructing the calibrated hydraulic model, a modeling analysis was performed to
identify deficiencies in the existing system and deficiencies that would be caused by
increased future demand. Upon identifying deficiencies, NPWA worked with CH2M
HILL and Optimatics to identify all possible solutions to the identified deficiencies. This
resulted in approximately 315 existing pipe alignments that could be relined or upsized,
175 possible new pipe alignments, 8 potential new tank locations, 2 new booster station
locations and 7 pressure zone boundary adjustments. Additionally, each of these
improvement options was given a range of possible sizes. This wide range of variables
resulted in a very complex analysis, obviously beyond the capabilities of a trial and error
approach. The system improvements were optimized to meet established hydraulic performance
criteria and minimize both operating and capital costs. The capital improvement projects
identified and optimized by the GA analysis were confirmed by NPWA to be feasible and
desirable improvements. After this confirmation, the optimized improvements were
phased over a 25-year planning horizon to comprise a fully optimized CIP. Includes figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 230 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 7 |
| Published : | 04/18/2004 |
