The Alexandria, Virginia Sanitation Authority (ASA) owns, operates and maintains a 54
million gallon per day (MGD) advanced wastewater treatment plant, 3 pump stations and
related interceptor infrastructure, serving the City of Alexandria and portions of Fairfax
County. With a discharge located one quarter mile from the Potomac River and ultimately
reaching the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, regulatory change in the form of more stringent
permit limits are constant. A new permit with much stricter limits issued in 1999 and a
signed voluntary agreement for Total Nitrogen removal with the Virginia Department of
Environmental Quality (VDEQ) required a massive $325 million upgrade to the Authority's
treatment facilities. In addition, Consent Decrees with the VDEQ and EPA Region III set a
compliance date of 2002 for the nitrogen limits. The fast turn around needed for design and
construction, as well as assurances for operational compliance, required that the Authority
venture "outside the box" in designing and procuring equipment and construction contracts.
Teams of
consulting engineers worked with staff across all levels of operations, maintenance and
support services to fast track design. Various approaches to equipment purchases were
used to expedite delivery and insure that the Authority received the equipment it needed,
whether to insure it fit in the buildings design or to keep equipment consistency throughout
the plant in order to minimize training and parts inventories. The partnering approach was
also used with the construction contractors. Because of limited land space at the site (28
acres), the six construction contracts were phased.
All in all, a series of different alternative approaches to design, procurement and
construction, as well as innovations in fiscal management such as the development of a
rate model and expeditious use of lines of credit, grants and loans, were undertaken to
insure that the Authority could meet its regulatory compliance date of operation in 2002.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
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| Number of Pages : | 5 |
