AWWA JTMGT57449

The Alexandria, Virginia Sanitation Authority (ASA) owns, operates and maintains a 54million gallon per day (MGD) advanced wastewater treatment plant, 3 pump stations andrelated interceptor infrastructure, serving the City of Alexandria and portions of FairfaxCounty. With a discharge located one quarter mile from the Potomac River and ultimatelyreaching the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, regulatory change in the form of more stringentpermit limits are constant. A new permit with much stricter limits issued in 1999 and asigned voluntary agreement for Total Nitrogen removal with the Virginia Department ofEnvironmental Quality (VDEQ) required a massive $325 million upgrade to the Authoritystreatment facilities. In addition, Consent Decrees with the VDEQ and EPA Region III set acompliance date of 2002 for the nitrogen limits. The fast turn around needed for design andconstruction, as well as assurances for operational compliance, required that the Authorityventure outside the box in designing and procuring equipment and construction contracts.Teams ofconsulting engineers worked with staff across all levels of operations, maintenance andsupport services to fast track design. Various approaches to equipment purchases wereused 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 throughoutthe plant in order to minimize training and parts inventories. The partnering approach wasalso used with the construction contractors. Because of limited land space at the site (28acres), the six construction contracts were phased. All in all, a series of different alternative approaches to design, procurement andconstruction, as well as innovations in fiscal management such as the development of arate model and expeditious use of lines of credit, grants and loans, were undertaken toinsure that the Authority could meet its regulatory compliance date of operation in 2002.



Keywords: Regulations; Construction; Equipment; Design; Compliance; Virginia; Contracts; Advanced Wastewater Treatment