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Missouri American Water Company is a major water supplier in the St. Louis metro area and at the center of the distribution system is one of the most critical pump stations not only in Missouri, but in the entire American Water network—the Stratmann Pump Station. The Stratmann Pump Station was originally constructed in 1926 with an expansion in 1954. Because of the critical nature of the station, its age and condition, and an inability to get replacement parts for much of the equipment, Missouri American Water Company elected to replace the pump station in its entirety as quickly as possible. The design and construction of the new pump station was developed with a focus on reliability, operations, redundancy, and flexibility with significant input from Missouri American staff. After utilizing the combined expertise of both an engineer and contractor for the planning phase and to develop a conceptual design, the Design-Build project delivery system was used to design, permit, and construct the new 70 MGD pump station. This approach allowed for design and construction to be conducted quickly, developing many separate construction packages in a sequence that facilitated keeping the existing pump station and two 11 million gallon storage tanks operational, and to also to acquire 18 permits and construct the pump station in a critical path. Continuous communications between the Design-Build team and the Owner allowed for modifications to the original concepts and valuable Owner input throughout the entire project, allowing Missouri American to prioritize and optimize the improvements while maintaining the project budget.
Read MoreWith today’s ever-shrinking budgets, available resources, and increasing expectations, it is essential for Public Works managers and Supervisors to orchestrate a plan and schedule to make best use of their limited resources and to efficiently and effectively manage resources. The key is to not let the work control you but rather, to control the work through proactive planning and scheduling. Two agencies utilize technology and systems as well as age old methods to plan and schedule their maintenance work. This allows them to properly maintain their assets, prioritize work and obtain necessary resources.
Read More5G/Small Cell has become an important topic in many ways since 2017. There are several terms that are used in discussions regarding 5G/Small Cell, so this State of the Technology tech…
Read MoreThe Weather Data Environment (WxDE) is a comprehensive system for managing a national road weather observation database available to the road weather community for operations and research. The system manages Road Weather Information System(RWIS) observation data for States, Cities, Counties, and MPOs with the ultimate objective of being a shared source for all RWIS data nationally. The WxDE provides tools for acquiring quality-checked road weather data and forecasts from various (RWIS) in differing data formats, and data transfer protocols. The WxDE supports subscriptions for access to real-time data in near real time. This access provides data for winter operation decision support, connected vehicle research, application development and pilot project demonstrations. Success of the WxDE is predicated on continuous collaboration between the contributors and the users of the data. Weather events do not happen within individual states or county borders. By providing access to shared road weather data from across the nation, decision support solutions used by maintenance operators can be more efficient and effective. The WxDE is a critical tool for the road weather community as we continue to advance road weather research and operations in pursuit of our ultimate goal of achieving the highest levels of safety, mobility and productivity on the nation’s surface transportation system. This presentation will discuss in detail the WxDE in its current form, including operations and research applications. The discussion will include a scenario based step by step approach to integrating road weather data into any city or county road weather management program and highlight the value to the program. It will also demonstrate how the WxDE fits into a larger framework of Non-Recurring Event data as part of a comprehensive Transportation System Management Operation (TSMO) plan.
Read MoreIn this educational session, you will meet the new National LTAP Association President and hear from a panel of Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) Center Directors. The partnership between APWA and the NLTAPA has grown stronger over time and we will share with you many ways the LTAP centers are making a difference for local transportation agencies. You will also receive some resources to take back to your agency.
Read MoreAs many cities across the country have struggled to meet changing recycling market conditions, the City of Phoenix found a solution to this issue through a public and private partnership. This partnership was established to assist with the upgrade of the North Gateway MRF to ensure that the city was able to meet new industry standards, which includes more stringent commodity specifications (residual requirements) and change in inbound material composition. The North Gateway Transfer Station (NGTS) processes recyclables from North Phoenix, the City of Peoria, and the City of Prescott. The $4.5 million upgrade to this facility was funded by a $3 million no-interest loan from the Closed Loop Fund, $1 million from the City of Peoria, and the remainder was covered by city funds. Upgrades to NGTS began in September 2019 and concluded in December 2019. Equipment upgrades at the facility included two new anti-wrap disk screens, two new optical sorters, a drum feeder, expansion to the pre-sort line, critical infrastructure upgrades to the electrical and fire life safety systems, and a ballistic separator. Benefits from the upgrade include a substantial improvement of the capture of glass, paper, PET, OCC and aluminum; the ability to achieve tighter material quality specifications; 50% improvement in MRF throughput (processing speed); increased inbound processing capacity due to increased throughput; reduced residuals sent to landfill; the ability to temporarily process the City of Scottsdale’s recyclables since their MRF burned down in 2019; the ability to temporarily shoulder recyclables from 27th Avenue transfer station as this MRF underwent baler replacements over two weeks; and the ability to process more fiber products due to the increased demand of cardboard and paper during the COVID shutdown. None of these benefits would have been possible without the upgrades.
Read MoreIn this Point-Counter-Point debate-style presentation, two traffic operations engineers will explain why roundabouts are a leading design solution versus why traffic signals rule the intersection control world! Each side will present data on traffic volumes, traffic flow, safety, operations and maintenance, expandability and affordability for roundabouts in series versus intelligent traffic signal corridors. They report, you decide, in the Great Intersection Debate of PWX 2021.
Read MoreIn an era of data-driven decision-making, it is easy acquire data about so many things. The entire discipline of asset management is predicated on first acquiring condition data about your organization's infrastructure assets. But what about our most important asset, the people that do the work of public works? How do we know what our employees think of their own workplace? How do they feel about it? Find out how to measure the morale of your workgroup with a simple survey that directly informs management of what our co-workers think and feel about the workplace. Designed around Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the survey results instruct the manager on the best next step to take to improve morale in the workgroup.
Read MoreIn August of 2014, Washtenaw County Water Resources (WCWRC) adopted new rules requiring infiltration of the 90th percentile design storm for all new site plans. The rules permit an alternative of traditional detention storage at 120% of calculated 100-year storm capacity only if WCWRC determines that soils testing was adequate and found inadequate infiltration capacity. In 7 years, nearly 250 sites have been reviewed, and this presentation will describe the review requirements, stakeholder engagement process, outcomes, and win-win benefits to water resources AND the development community. Nearly 25% of sites have been able to eliminate detention and infiltrate the entire 100-year storm. By definition, using the 90th percentile storm (1″ in the study area) returns 90% of annual rainfall into the groundwater, a tremendous benefit to urban and suburban rivers, lakes and streams. Third party information will be provided to demonstrate that using the 90th percentile storm also provides more reliable TSS treatment than detention or mechanical separators. In most urbanized areas, communities require stormwater management with one major goal being reduction of impacts due to development. It is well known that detention basins can simulate pre-development runoff rates but they do not simulate pre-development conditions in five (5) areas. First, detention does not address added volume and thus contribute to downstream water quantity issues. Second, reduced infiltration from natural conditions is beneficial to water quality through groundwater recharge for cooler, stream inputs, steadier base flow, and TSS removal. Third, detention basins have fixed capacity and therefore very limited resiliency. Fourth, detention basins sized for 100-year storms tend to require 5-10% of the contributing land area. Fifth, think about every basin you have seen at an apartment complex and how many geese and ‘tootsie rolls’ you see surrounding them. Ewww.
Read MoreOn October 10, 2018, Bay County was struck by the third-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the United States. It was the first Category 5 hurricane on record to impact the Florida Panhandle and produced the nation’s largest debris disaster. The storm was attributed to at least 74 deaths and caused an estimated $25.1 billion in damages. Bay County, Florida, received the eye of the storm and the Public Works Department learned many important lessons both pre- and post-storm. Some of the lessons discussed in this presentation include: pre disaster staging; post-disaster staging; communications; FEMA paperwork and FEMA consultants; Disaster Management Sites (DMS); feeding and lodging staff and their families; emergency contracts; post-disaster traffic flow; FLAWARN; post-storm equipment needs; long-term recovery. Two years after Hurricane Michael, Bay County is still recovering, but plans are being put in place to help.
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