waterscapesA TECHNICAL PUBLICATION BY HDR’S WATER GROUP

2015, No. 1 Water Supply Diversification and Integrated Planning

CONTENTSCONTENTS

02Is the Current Drought in Texas a Game Changer?

06South Platte Plan Calls for Collaborative Solutions

1 1Met Council Explores Solutions for the Twin Cities

14Recovering Water from Membrane Concentrate—Pilot Testing in Colorado

18A Vision Long in the Making

20WISE—Creativity, Flexibility (and Patience) to Fund a Large Water Supply Reliability Project

Sun is setting over Mississippi River in Minneapolis.© iS

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2015, NO. 1

Waterscapes is a technical publication produced and distributed by HDR.

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TECHNICAL EDITOR Blaine Dwyer

WATERSCAPES EDITORMeg Desmond

EDITING & DESIGN Marketing Services Creative Studio

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(Cover) Autumn colors along the Mississippi River, Minneapolis skyline in the distance. © iStockphoto.com/HDR

What should the next generation of water planning buzzwords be? As forward-thinking water planning and management strategies evolve, what labels should we use for them?

Years ago we had “total water management.” Now we use “integrated water planning.” But, let’s face it, within the water planning world, “integrated” is becoming overused. The EPA has adopted “integrated planning” as the label for a new program to help financially-challenged water, wastewater and stormwater utilities prioritize projects while maintaining compliance with federal requirements. Project delivery folks have adopted the moniker of “integrated delivery” for concepts including what we used to call “design-build,” or “alternative delivery.”

Water planners – we need some new buzzwords!

HDR’s water supply and management clients face daunting challenges in developing new water sources, while maintaining their existing supplies and addressing complex regulatory compliance and environmental stewardship challenges. Central to these challenges is the concern that as hydrological variability increases, the traditional practice of using past hydrologic records to predict future supplies is becoming less reliable. To communicate the ever more complex nature of risk-informed decision making, where the probability of supply failures and the consequences of those failures are jointly assessed, we need to invent new methods (and new buzzwords).

Recognizing the impossibility of truly “safe” yield from water supply projects, today’s managers are becoming experts in “scenario planning,” “low regrets strategies” and “risk assessment, allocation and management.” Environmental resource management and regulatory agencies must deal with multiple inter-relationships between causes and effects so as to cope with data uncertainties and modeling accuracies that often lead to analysis paralysis and dueling experts.

While buzzwords such as “adaptive management” and “learning-by-doing” hold promise in managing the escalating complexity of water planning today, these terms and strategies must be balanced with water managers’ needs for reasonable and definable levels of certainty to make the decisions that their agencies, rate-paying constituents and the environment will have to live with for decades to come.

Presented in this issue of Waterscapes are six examples of water agencies meeting these daunting water supply and environmental challenges head-on with a variety of water planning and management goals, strategies and themes. Which of them apply to your situation? What can you borrow from them? What strategies are you pursuing and does this information help confirm or repudiate them?

Enjoy. And, let us know what you think about the future of water supply planning. Have some fun; try using the words in quotes above to help stimulate your thinking.

And send in your ideas for the next set of water planning buzzwords to blaine.dwyer@hdrinc.com.

HDR Integrated Water Planning Director

MESSAGE FROM TECHNICAL EDITOR

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Typical effects of drought.

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Texas is no stranger to drought. The drought of the 1950s affected most

regions of the Lone Star state. This event led to the formation of the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) and subsequent state water planning efforts.

In many ways, the 1950s drought pales in comparison to the most recent one that began around 2010.

Things got really bad in 2011 as many areas of the state experienced over 100 days of temperatures greater than 100 degrees with minimal rainfall. Drought gripped the Canadian and Red River

By Kristi Shaw, P.E. Integrated Water Planning Project Manager, Austin, TX

Is the Current Drought in Texas a Game Changer?

basins near the Texas Panhandle for an extended period of time, reducing surface water storage to emergency levels.

In a desperate measure amid Stage 5 drought conditions, the City of Wichita Falls began reuse of wastewater in July, following the lead of the West Texas town of Big Spring, which implemented a direct reuse program in May 2013. The City of Brownwood also is considering a similar potable reuse program.

In our summer 2013 edition1 of Waterscapes, this most recent drought experienced in the Upper Brazos region was classified as worse than the 1950s drought of record.

CURRENT CONTEXT OF WATER SUPPLY IN TEXASThe population of the state of Texas has grown from 8.8 million in the mid-1950s to over 26 million in 2012,

according to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Brian Perkins, an HDR Integrated Water Planning project manager, has spent over 10 years studying water supply and demand patterns in south central Texas. Perkins found that “in recent years, the competing interests of rural and municipal entities, balance of human and environmental needs, public perceptions of water development and water conservation have intensified the challenges in securing long-term drought-resistant water supplies.”

Surface water permitting has become an extremely challenging and lengthy process, with simple permit applications regularly taking 2 to 5 years, and these are frequently contested. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) recently adopted environmental flow standards for major river basins in

Follow-up to the Waterscapes Summer 2013 article “Texas Drought—A Call for Action”

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Texas to define and protect flow regimes for subsistence, base flow, and high flow pulses. These new standards make it difficult to acquire and operate new surface water permits.

Groundwater supply also has its challenges. The Texas Legislature’s creation of Groundwater Management Areas has resulted in development of local, aquifer-based groundwater supply limits for the next 50 years. These are referred to as Modeled Available Groundwater (MAG) and are designed to maintain desired future aquifer conditions, which can range from water levels to maintenance of spring flows.

The TWDB and HDR integrated water planners in Texas use reservoir storage capacity as a prominent drought index for water supply planning. Texas has over 100 water supply reservoirs with at least 20,000 acre-feet of storage capacity. As of August 2014, the total reservoir storage in Texas was less than 67 percent of capacity and dropping.

EMERGENCY DROUGHT RESPONSEThe current drought in Texas is a game changer. Cory Shockley, HDR associate vice president, has worked with both North Texas and West Central Texas municipal entities to develop long-term water supplies.

He’s seeing plans developed to meet clients’ needs for the next several decades, currently in the process of permitting and implementation, being put on hold because of this current drought.

“One of the interesting things about droughts is that they don’t always look the same in duration and intensity,” Shockley said. “But one thing is for sure – when reservoir levels approach record lows, water suppliers get nervous and start thinking short-term emergencies, not long-term solutions.

“The bad news is that these emergency solutions often do not provide the cities and other municipalities with long-term supply. These options also are taking

critical funds away from the permitting and engineering effort needed to develop long-term supply options,” adds Shockley.

HDR currently is assisting several clients in Texas facing these real supply shortage challenges, and has shifted gears as needed from long-term project development to short-term emergency supply options and implementation.

Palo Pinto County Municipal Water District No. 1 owns and operates Lake Palo Pinto, which has dropped to 10 percent capacity. After estimating that the district only had about 12 months of supply remaining unless the drought breaks, HDR went from a permitting effort on the new reservoir to planning and developing emergency supply options for the district to undertake immediately.

The district is now pursuing the development of a 3.5 MGD ultra-filtration and reverse osmosis treatment process to treat water diverted from the Brazos River. Although this project is an expensive short-term solution, it is the best temporary solution that can extend the city’s supplies amid continuing drought conditions. The ultra-filtration and reverse osmosis project is being designed by HDR using a construction manager at risk (CMAR) model.

In central Texas, the cities of Cedar Park and Leander have constructed a drought contingency raw water supply system in Lake Travis in response to the current drought. HDR water and wastewater engineer Aaron Archer provided design services for 4,200 linear feet of 42-inch HDPE pipeline threaded beneath a marina and an innovative underwater manifold secured to the lake bed with rock anchors (Phase A) followed up by a 30 MGD floating pump station with acoustically enclosed pumps to reduce noise impacts to surrounding residents (Phase B).

Both phases were designed on an expedited schedule in less than two months at a total project cost exceeding $10 million.

Reservoir Storage (% Full) as of: 8/8/2014 (change from 6/30/2014).*Note: Although it supplies water to the El Paso area, Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico is not included in calculations for the Trans Peco Region

© Texas Water Development Board

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“This project was important for both communities faced with drought uncertainty and the need for reliable water supplies,” Archer said. “However, this project is intended to serve temporarily until the long-term Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority (BCRUA) deep water intake is completed.”

BCRUA is a regional partnership of the cities of Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock. The deep water intake will meet the ultimate capacity needs of the authority and reduce vulnerability to drought conditions in Lake Travis by accessing deep water near the original river channel.

The deep water intake system includes a raw water intake assembly with screens at multiple levels for selective water withdrawal, an 8,000 LF 96-inch deep gravity tunnel, a 142 MGD pump station with a 300-foot deep access shaft, and a 3,000 LF 84-inch pressure tunnel. The total cost of the project is approximately $165 million.

Lago Vista, a town of about 6,000 people on Lake Travis, is also moving ahead with emergency water supply measures due to recent worst-case lake level projections from the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) that manages Lake Travis. Shay Roalson, HDR North Central Texas Water lead, is designing and assisting in the construction of a new floating intake on the downstream side of the lake in deeper water, where the elevation of the Colorado River channel is approximately 80 feet deeper than the lake bottom elevation at the current raw water intake location.

The intake barge is designed to accommodate lake elevations ranging from 540 feet-msl to the 100-year flood elevation of 722 feet-msl. City officials also are constructing a new 2 MGD water treatment plant to allow an existing plant to be decommissioned.

LONG-TERM WATER SUPPLY DEVELOPMENTAlthough the immediate need for emergency supplies often take precedent during drought, HDR’s Integrated Water

Planning group in Texas continues to evaluate long-term solutions to provide flexibility and meet future long-term goals of our clients.

For example, the Dallas Long Range Water Supply Plan (LRWSP) is a 50-year plan to identify Dallas demands, quantify supply from existing sources, calculate needs, and identify new water supply projects to meet the needs of the city and its customers for the next 50 years and beyond.

As part of the analysis, HDR applied a system-specific Dallas Water Supply Model (RiverWare model), which simulates all components of the Dallas raw water supply system. The team then analyzed over 300 options, ranking and scoring 40-plus viable strategies to identify and prioritize the top potential strategies, which will go to the Dallas City Council for their consideration and approval.

The focus was not on developing an extended population forecast, but rather to take steps to minimize future demands. Conservation and multiple reuse projects are key players in allowing city officials to maximize existing supplies.

“The plan offers a clear pathway for Dallas to assure a consistent water supply for their customers for the next 50-plus years,” HDR’s Shockley said. “This two-year planning study is longer than typical but is extremely comprehensive. We looked at every detail of the Dallas system and delved into many system variations. The result is a solution unique to Dallas that provides a pathway to 2070 and beyond.”

In addition to regional water planning for three of the 16 planning areas in Texas, HDR is helping West Texas entities identify long-term water solutions, such as working with the City of Lubbock to identify potential sites for aquifer storage and recovery (ASR). HDR is also assisting the West Texas Water Partnership2, a cooperative arrangement between the West Texas cities of Abilene, Midland and San Angelo, to identify regional water solutions to diversify water supplies and mitigate drought impacts.

“The West Texas Water Partnership is a unique collaboration,” says David Dunn, HDR vice president. “This demonstrates how individual municipalities can pool resources and jointly pursue water supplies to benefit an entire region of the state, rather than continuing to work alone, looking to just their individual needs.”

In the lower Brazos Basin, HDR is assisting The Dow Chemical Company with a new Brazos River intake and expansion of the company’s off-channel reservoir storage to augment their existing surface water rights during dry summer months when diversions from the river are often limited.

While Dow has recently enacted conservation programs that reduce water consumption by 20 percent, the facility still requires as much water as a large municipality. Dow was forced to make priority water rights calls in 2009, 2011 and 2013 to protect its senior diversion rights and ensure that the site continued to have adequate supply to operate during the drought conditions.

Dow’s river intake and reservoir expansion will significantly increase the reliability of the facility’s water supply, and protect the economy of the region and thousands of related jobs.

“Continued water supply to Dow’s Freeport facility is critical to both the Texas and U.S. economies, as the 65 production plants at the facility produce more than $10 billion of product each year and are responsible for 8,000 direct jobs,” Dunn said. “Ensuring adequate future water supply to industrial facilities, not just municipalities, is important to maintaining strong regional, state and national economies.”

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?The future is anyone’s guess, but one thing is certain: prudent water providers will plan for the worst and enjoy the more favorable conditions if they occur.

Texas legislators and stakeholders are taking this worst-case planning scenario to heart. Representative Todd Hunter and Senator Craig Estes recently embarked on

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For additional information about this article, please contact Kristi Shaw at kristi.shaw@hdrinc.com.

a desalination tour across Texas (Wichita Falls, Austin and Corpus Christi) as part of a Joint Interim Committee to Study Seawater Desalination.

Texas Water Conservation Association committees consisting of water professionals, lawyers and stakeholders are recommending new legislation to expand brackish groundwater desalination opportunities and aquifer storage and recovery projects in Texas. Additionally, draft legislation is being proposed to expand reuse and ease of interbasin transfers of water supplies.

Gone are the days of cheap water supply development. Texans are forced to consider more innovative tools for water management, such as reuse, conjunctive

use of groundwater and surface water supplies, aquifer storage and recovery, and desalination.

The immediate outlook on the drought does not look promising, but hope may be on the horizon. Although drought conditions persisted and intensified throughout the summer and fall, the possibility of a change in weather patterns in early 2015 looks favorable. The Climate Prediction Center estimates over a 60 percent chance of an El Nino weather pattern through February 2015. The trends are anticipated to tend towards neutral after March.

El Nino weather patterns typically bring higher than average rainfall amounts to the Southwestern U.S., including Texas. The

last occurrence of an El Nino was in the fall and winter of 2009, the same year Texas emerged from its previous drought.

In the meantime, Texans will continue to “Pray for rain and plan for drought.”

1 McMahon, M., “Texas Drought—A Call for Action”, Summer 2013

2http://westtexaswaterpartnership.com

El Niño Forecast, U.S. Climate Prediction Center

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On May 14, 2013, Governor John Hickenlooper released an executive order for the State of Colorado to embark on the

creation of its first comprehensive state water plan, set to be finalized by December 2015.

The first edition of Colorado’s Water Plan (CWP) will mark a major milestone in integrative water management in Colorado. Though proactive water planning has long been a fixture in the state, the CWP marks a response to several coalescing challenges facing local water planners resulting in stronger state level action.

HDR is playing a major part of this effort through its development of the South Platte Basin Implementation Plan (SP BIP), the key planning document for water resources along much of Colorado’s Front Range, including the Denver metropolitan area and the state’s most prominent agricultural counties located in northeastern Colorado.

This effort has brought together a dynamic cadre of skill sets within HDR including water and natural resources, integrative water planning, and public involvement to contribute an important piece to the CWP.

COLORADO WATER SUPPLY PLANNING: STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT, GEOGRAPHIC REALITIES AND WATER ADMINISTRATIONThe state’s involvement in water management reaches back over 75 years to the establishment of the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), an organization created to provide policy direction on water issues in Colorado.

In addition to its many other roles and responsibilities, the CWCB has been providing support and technical expertise to the state’s Interbasin Compact Committee (IBCC), a body created by statute in 2005 to encourage conversations among Colorado River basins and address statewide water issues.

The IBCC is made up of representatives from each of nine Basin Roundtables (BRTs) in the state as well as “at-large” members appointed by the governor. The purpose of the BRTs is to

“facilitate continued discussions within and between basins on water management issues, and to encourage locally driven collaborative solutions to water supply challenges.i”

BRTs represent distinct river basins within Colorado, with the exception of the Metro Roundtable, which encompasses the metropolitan areas of Denver, Aurora and surrounding cities and communities.

By Britta Strother, Water Environmental Management Planning Director, Denver, COKathryn Weismiller, Environmental Planning and Public Involvement Specialist, Denver, CO

South Platte Plan Calls for Collaborative Solutions

The Metro Roundtable represents the most densely populated areas within the South Platte Basin. Meanwhile, the South Platte BRT represents the areas surrounding the Metro Roundtable, all within the South Platte River basin including the portion of the Republican River Basin in Colorado. The division of the South Platte’s geographical basin into two BRTs facilitates better representation of the diverse interests within the basin and, in concept, mirrors the structure of the CWCB.

In a state where water is already stretched thin to serve current needs, the process of developing the CWP has raised concerns among Colorado residents over to what degree the plan will affect local planning and control. In addition, Colorado has long been a state divided over water, with those on the east slope of the Rocky Mountains in one camp and those on the west slope in another.

Many of these stakeholders worry that discussion of statewide water projects in the CWP will compromise local needs, particularly on the west slope, and lead to additional water diversions to support population and industry growth on the east slope.

To address such concerns, Colorado’s governor directed the BRTs to use a grassroots process to develop BIPs for each of the eight major river basins. These BIPs would then help guide the development of the CWP and subsequently be appended to the CWP. The following key statewide goals were set for the CWP:

• Identify and address water supply gaps between demand and supply

• Address Colorado’s need for greater resiliency to weather variability in drought and flood events

• Prevent the loss of irrigated agriculture to meet the growing demands of municipal areas

• Continue to protect Colorado’s access to water supply entitlements under existing interstate compacts

Colorado has long been a state divided over water, with those on the east slope of the Rocky Mountains in one camp and those on the west slope in another.

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Each Roundtable developed a BIP that was submitted it to the CWCB on July 31, 2014 in accordance with the state’s schedule. Although the details and structure of the BIPs vary, they were intended to identify each basin’s specific future water supply challenges, the strategies each will pursue to address those challenges, and the projects and methods they may implement to meet these identified needs. The information from each BIP will then be incorporated into the development of the CWP.

A key aspect developing a pragmatic CWP and useful BIPs relates to Colorado water administration and the degree to which long-held and frequently litigated water laws can be adapted to accommodate current and future water needs.

Colorado is a state where water law is ruled by the doctrine of prior appropriation, and the concept of “first in time, first in right” applies to water rights throughout the state. This means that the earlier a water right is put to use and adjudicated, the more senior it is and the more secure its access to water.

More junior rights may go without water in drier years. This long-held doctrine even predates the founding of the State of Colorado and is incorporated in the state’s constitution. It largely drives the strategies that local water planners use to secure water for their communities. The doctrine also has important impacts on business decisions in many economic sectors, and impacts the way the communities plan for growth.

The state’s water administration must also be executed in compliance with interstate river compacts and multi-state federal endangered species recovery programs; both of which heavily affect current South Platte water management and future water supply options.

THE PIVOTAL ROLE OF THE SOUTH PLATTE BASIN The South Platte Basin is located along Colorado’s Front Range which, combined with the Arkansas Basin, houses an estimated 80 percent of the state’s population while having access to only 20 percent of the state’s surface water supplies.

Major cities and municipalities within the South Platte Basin include Denver, Aurora, Boulder, Thornton, Fort Collins, and Greeley.

While the South Platte hosts the largest population centers in the state, it is also the agricultural breadbasket of Colorado. The top agricultural producing counties in Colorado by volume and sales all fall within the South Platte Basin.

Considering that the basin has the highest anticipated population growth in the state (previous estimates developed by the state show that up to 80 percent of Colorado’s additional water demand through 2050 will be here), South Platte water managers are faced with challenging integrated water management issues in meeting future water demands with very limited supplies.

There is a wide range of competing water needs in the South Platte Basin including municipal, industrial, and agricultural, as well as important water-dependent ecological and recreational attributes. Coloradoans and many out-of-state tourists regularly take advantage of the South Platte Basin’s recreational opportunities including a large portion of Rocky Mountain National Park, wilderness areas along the Continental Divide, whitewater rafting in mountain streams and gold-medal fisheries.

In summary, the South Platte Basin faces major challenges in determining the best ways to use its limited water resources to supply the majority of Colorado’s expected future population growth while maintaining its important environmental and

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recreational attributes and minimizing adverse effects on its vital agricultural economy. The basin’s diverse set of economic drivers present water supply challenges that are unique, both in Colorado and across the United States.

INTEGRATED PROCESSES TO PLAN FOR COLORADO’S WATER FUTUREThe state launched an energetic process for the development of the CWP. Following a similar timeline, each BRT worked diligently to deliver draft BIPs by July 31, 2014 to be included in the draft and final CWP as appendices.

In the case of the South Platte Basin, it was determined that though the geographical basin is represented by two BRTs (Metro and South Platte); a single South Platte BIP would be developed under their joint direction. The work was then split into two parts—consumptive and environmental/recreational uses.

An HDR team was selected to develop information on consumptive use (municipal, industrial and agricultural) and to assemble the overall plan, while another consulting team led by West Sage Water Consultants was selected for the contract to develop the plan for the environmental/recreational uses.

Since starting work in late December 2013, the HDR and West Sage teams worked collaboratively and energetically to finalize the BIP

in accordance with the state’s deadline to have drafts submitted by July 31, 2014.

With the tight timelines of the project, HDR’s major focus in developing the draft BIP was a consolidation of previous technical and planning information from throughout the basin to identify strategies to meet the basin’s projected water supply gap.

PUBLIC INVOLVEMENTA robust public involvement program was a critical component of meeting the state’s goal to incorporate local perspectives. With the major focus of the draft being the integration of decades of previous technical work in the basin, the public involvement process was critical to provide local and current input from diverse stakeholder interests.

The SP BIP identifies strategies for meeting the water needs of Colorado’s largest metropolitan areas as well as some of its most productive agricultural zones. Capturing the concerns of a diverse stakeholder base is imperative to the acceptance of the SP BIP and the ability of the state to implement the key recommendations.

To that end, an extensive public participation process was a significant component of developing the SP BIPs first draft. This public involvement process has been a vital tool in gathering perspectives from local communities, per the goals of the CWP.

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In the first phase of the program, a communications plan was developed to provide South Platte Basin stakeholders and the general public with unified messaging, information and opportunities for input regarding the BIP process. To do this, HDR worked in collaboration with the Public Education, Participation, and Outreach (PEPO) Workgroup of the IBCC, the Basin Roundtable Education Liaisons and the West Sage team. Following this, a series of four public open houses were held throughout the South Platte basin.

THE DRAFT SP BIP SETS THE STAGE FOR THE BASIN AND HELPS GUIDE THE CWPOn July 31, 2014, the draft SP BIP was submitted to the CWCB for incorporation in the Draft CWP. The creation of the Draft SP BIP was a collaborative process of the Metro Roundtable and the South Platte BRT with the assistance of HDR and West Sage Water Consultants. The overarching themes that drive the discussion of the SP BIP challenges and solutions are:1. A good Colorado Plan needs a good South Platte Plan2. Solutions must be pragmatic, balanced and consistent with

Colorado water law and property rights3. The South Platte River Basin will continue in its leadership role

in efficient use and management of water4. A balanced program is needed to plan and preserve Colorado

River optionsii

With these four overarching themes in mind, the SP BIP provides a dialogue on water supply challenges specific to the South Platte Basin that shapes the way that solutions are identified, analyzed and implemented.

CHALLENGES FACING THE SOUTH PLATTE BASINDue to diverse economic and environmental drivers in the basin and its limited remaining water available for new supply, the South Platte Basin faces an enormous challenge in meeting its future water needs. As the basin faces the greatest projected water supply gap in Colorado, challenges facing the South Platte can greatly affect Colorado’s future through the 2050 planning horizon and beyond.

Though the challenges loom, they are not insurmountable. The SP BIP offers an integrated planning approach that will maximize the use of existing water supplies, develop new opportunities, and leverage technology and policy advancements that help meet the Basin’s diverse water supply needs.

Limited Native Supply in the South Platte—The basin typically has little unappropriated water from either the South Platte or Republican Rivers available for new uses. Population growth and new economic activities may largely require transfers of water away from other uses, or the importation of new Colorado River water supplies.

Conservation, Reuse, and Successive Use—South Platte Basin water is successively used seven times before it leaves the state at the Nebraska border. While this amount of successive use is commendable, it also constrains the ability of water planners to exchange water or to convey it upstream for future water needs or storage. Water providers in the basin have also implemented significant water conservation measures that are known nationally for their rigor.

Groundwater and Aquifer Storage and Recovery—Continuation of current groundwater withdrawals are constrained by declining water levels and well productivity in large areas of the Denver Basin Aquifer System. In addition, well users relying on alluvial aquifers along the South Platte have faced shutdowns due to a shortage of augmentation water.

Interstate Water Commitments—The South Platte River Compact divides the waters of the South Platte River between Colorado and Nebraska, as does the Republican River Compact between Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. These agreements place significant constraints on Colorado water use due to downstream obligations to other states.

Programmatic and Regulatory Issues—Programs to protect habitat for endangered species that use the South Platte River and its riparian corridors place specific constraints on approval of new water depletions and prevent certain new water storage facilities. In addition, regulatory and permitting issues constrain water planning due to unpredictable timeframes and requirements associated with federal, state and local permitting requirements.

Environmental and Recreational Uses—Stream flow preservation, while essential to many recreational economies, including fishing, waterfowl hunting and boating, and for general aesthetics near waterways, constrains potential future water development. Fortunately, many opportunities exist to maintain these opportunities while concurrently developing water supply projects.

Water Quality Issues—Today, many higher quality water sources are fully developed and municipal water suppliers must meet new supply demands with lower quality water sources often located in the lower portions of the basin requiring technological innovation for delivery, treatment, and disposal of brine.

SOLUTIONSMaking Choices Colorado’s current de facto answer to growing water demands has been the use of agricultural-to-municipal and industrial water transfers. These transfers offer a mechanism to provide much-needed water to municipal suppliers; however, this water comes at the expense of the agricultural sector, which has a long and rich history in Colorado.

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The dry-up of agricultural land in order to support growing municipal needs affects small agricultural communities across the state. These small communities are an important part of Colorado’s rich cultural heritage.

Finding solutions for the range of issues constraining water planning in the South Platte Basin is as much about determining how to balance competing water demands as it is about seeking technological and political solutions.

To produce a viable and sustainable model to meet the projected water supply gap requires tradeoffs within the basin and the state concerning how natural resources should be used to support diverse economic, cultural, and environmental interests across the state.

Identified StrategiesThe SP BIP identifies strategies to meet future water needs by maximizing the statewide beneficial use of our water resources while minimizing adverse effects on environmental and recreational resources and identifying opportunities for collaborative environmental enhancements.

This approach includes implementing a large percentage of the basin’s Identified Projects and Processes (IPPs), a term used to describe the existing strategies and water projects that have been planned but not yet completed. Additionally, the plan calls for enhancing water use efficiencies (conservation and reuse), integrating multi-purpose projects comprised of conveyance and storage (primarily off-channel and enlargements of existing reservoirs) and integrating existing water infrastructure systems where possible.

The plan incorporates environmental and recreational protections and enhancements, utilizes agricultural transfers using alternative methods to lessen traditional “buy-and-dry,” and suggests continue dialogue through IBCC processes to consider development of new unappropriated Colorado River supplies for the benefit and protection of all of Colorado, both now and in the future.

The SP BIP vision is to develop solutions that balance the use of new Colorado River supply, agricultural transfers, conservation and reuse in a coordinated manner to reduce the recreational, environmental, and social impacts of these projects while equitably spreading project benefits between the east and west slopes.

The South Platte Basin proposes the construction of projects that develop tandem, diverse sources of supply—from new Colorado River supplies and agricultural transfers—instead of relying on a single source of new supply, from either new Colorado River supplies or exclusively agricultural transfers.

FROM DRAFT TO FINALFollowing the submittal of the Draft SP BIP to the CWCB on July 31, 2014, the plan will continue to be refined and developed under the direction of the South Platte and Metro BRTs. With the assistance of HDR and West Sage, the Final SP BIP will be delivered to the CWCB in April 2015.

The South Platte Basin faces an abundance of unique challenges in planning for its municipal, industrial and agricultural water needs. It hosts some of the largest population centers in the state as well as leading business, industrial, recreational and agricultural water users.

As such, the South Platte Basin faces the largest projected shortfall for municipal, industrial and agricultural water supplies of any of Colorado’s river basins. The Draft SP BIP offers strategies to combat this shortfall utilizing diverse, tandem-supply solutions to chart a course that meets the projected water needs of the South Platte Basin.

This plan acknowledges the unique challenges, opportunities and trade-offs present in the South Platte Basin and then identifies 10 specific implementation strategies to address them. Because the solutions developed in the Plan are multifaceted, approaching the Basin’s water challenges with an arsenal of tools, they will help bridge the projected water supply gap while distributing the effects of water development across the state’s many regions, as well as its diverse economic interests.

When executed with the support of the state agencies, political leaders, business leaders and the public, the implementation strategies outlined in the plan have the potential to achieve the ambitious goal of supplying the water needed in the South Platte Basin, while also addressing the water needs and sustaining the economy of the State of Colorado through 2050.

iColorado Revised Statutes 37-75-105

ii Executive Order “Directing the Colorado Water Conservation Board to Commence Work on the Colorado Water Plan” D 2013-005, page 2.

For additional information about this article, please contact Britta Strother at britta.strother@hdrinc.com or Kathryn Weismiller at kathryn.weismiller@hdrinc.com.

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Minneapolis cityscape.

In the Land of 10,000 Lakes, it seems unlikely that water supply would be

an issue.

But in recent years the perspective in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area has shifted from one of water abundance to one of potential water challenges. For decades the region grew without a plan for ensuring a sustainable water supply.

The Metropolitan Council, the regional planning authority for the seven-county Twin Cities Metropolitan area, now fills that important role.

Working with communities and other agencies, the Council’s Water Supply Planning division coordinates water supply plans, studies regional water resources and provides technical analyses to improve the outlook for water reliability for the region.

By Kathryn Jones Water/Wastewater Project Manager, Minneapolis, MN

Met Council Explores Solutions for the Twin Cities

HDR is working with the Met Council Water Supply Planning staff to study water supply alternatives, including a shift from groundwater dependence to surface water supply, the potential for stormwater harvesting to offset demands, and enhanced infiltration to recharge the region’s strained aquifers.

TWIN CITIES WATER SUPPLYReliable sources of abundant and high-quality water have been critical to development of the Twin Cities region, home to more than 2.8 million people. With a growing population, a rapidly changing environment, and visible effects of groundwater withdrawals on water resources, the metropolitan area is focusing greater attention on sustainable water supplies to meet future development needs.

Most cities in the Twin Cities metropolitan area own and operate their own drinking water systems, which provided more than 109 billion gallons of supply in 2010. The core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul use surface water from the Mississippi River, which flows between the cities, as their water source.

Suburban growth around the core cities has relied on the abundant and relatively pure groundwater supplies available in the region, which now supply more than 75 percent of the region’s water demands. However, with increasing demands the outlook for continued reliance on groundwater to serve future growth is not as positive as it used to be.

Due to increased groundwater pumping, aquifers in the metropolitan area are being depleted. In some areas, groundwater

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levels have declined as much as 40 feet since the 1970s. Lakes, streams and wetlands are being affected through groundwater/surface water interactions.

The effects of increased groundwater withdrawals are being felt especially hard in the suburbs north and east of St. Paul. Water levels in White Bear Lake, a prominent recreational lake in the area, have declined by as much as 10 feet over the past several years.

These changes have been attributed to groundwater withdrawals from municipal wells in the area. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, which manages appropriations of groundwater and surface water in the state, is piloting a Groundwater Management Area to address the conflicting water uses.

Other considerations that will likely factor into the consideration of alternative supplies for the Twin Cities region include the effect of projected water use on regional groundwater levels, system resiliency, source reliability, public acceptance and implementation challenges, and the degree to which any of the alternatives may have limited availability in the long-term.

INTEGRATED APPROACHES TO WATER SUPPLYHDR is working with the Council to understand other important components of the region’s water supply that are part of an integrated solution. For example, enhanced infiltration is being studied to identify areas where water applied at the surface could infiltrate the subsurface efficiently, ultimately recharging permeable

bedrock formations, without creating adverse impacts to public drinking water supplies.

The results of these analyses are being used to prioritize implementation of recharge systems that could redirect stormwater runoff or treated wastewater effluent to enhanced infiltration basins, putting the water back into the aquifer rather than sending it downstream.

Beneficial use of stormwater is another integrated approach that HDR is studying for the region. In the upper Midwest, treated drinking water is often used for urban irrigation, driving peak summertime demands that can often measure three to four times average day demands.

Insert caption here

Municipal Water Use in the Seven-County Twin Cities Metropolitan Area

Credit: Metropolitan Council

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(continued on back cover)

There is potential to reduce groundwater withdrawals and costs associated with peak water production through capture, retention and use of stormwater as an urban irrigation source. In 2011 the Council published a Stormwater Reuse Guide to provide technical guidance to communities on reuse systems tailored specifically for Minnesota hydrological and regulatory conditions.

The Council and HDR are currently evaluating the feasibility of systems that could replace groundwater as a source for irrigation and other non-potable uses in specific regions of the metropolitan area.

In addition to providing these engineered solutions to water supply, the Met Council also champions conservation efforts in the region. Summer peaks in water use in the Twin Cities are often the result of non-essential uses.

Met Council acknowledges that demands on regional water resources could be reduced by 10 to 20 percent through behavioral changes alone. The Council’s water conservation toolbox provides tools and guidance to water suppliers and water users to reduce water demands.

In addition, Council staff members regularly participate in community events throughout the region to educate the public about the importance of the wise use of water. The Council also funds studies to optimize water use at industrial facilities.

REGIONAL COOPERATIONCooperative solutions can and have been developed successfully in the region, and are viewed as an important component of the region’s future water supply. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul have demonstrated successful operation of wholesale and retail water service with neighboring communities.

Credit: Metropolitan Council

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Interior of the NF Membrane Pilot Plant

Treatment using nanofiltration, or reverse osmosis (NF/RO) membrane technology, is an important tool for diversifying

water supplies by accessing low-quality water supplies. In addition to its ability to desalinate brackish water sources, NF/RO technology is capable of treating a range of natural and manmade contaminants found in impaired water sources.

As water managers are increasingly required to reliably meet water demand by developing brackish or impaired water sources, the need to employ NF/RO technology will continue to increase.

Yet the lack of options for the disposal of the NF/RO waste stream (e.g. termed concentrate or brine) is frequently a barrier for the implementation of this technology in arid portions of the country.

Paradoxically, this is precisely the portion of the country where water managers are most interested in developing brackish water sources. There are two aspects to the disposal problem.

First, contaminants concentrated in the brine stream can not readily be discharged to surface water bodies, since in arid areas these water bodies are few and typically have limited assimilative capacity. Obtaining a NPDES permit is frequently impossible.

By Phil Brandhuber, PhD Project Manager, Denver, CO

Recovering Water from Membrane Concentrate–Pilot Testing in Colorado

The recent trend is for new inland NF/RO plants to dispose of their brine in deep injection wells.

Second, NF/RO systems produce large quantities of brine, typically 20 to 25 percent of the water supplied to the plant. This represents a significant waste of water resources, particularly if the brine is injected into a disposal well.

Recognizing the importance of NF/RO technology in developing new water resources in Colorado, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), along with eight local utilities and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, sponsored the Colorado Zero Liquid Discharge Project.

This project, administered by the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) and managed by HDR, pilot tested an advanced treatment technology suitable for use by drinking water utilities and capable of obtaining recoveries in excess of 96 percent.

The technology, termed Zero Discharge Desalination (ZDD), is being developed by the Center for Inland Desalination Systems at the University of Texas-El Paso.

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EDM unit disassembled. The EDM pilot unit could treat up to 20 gallons per minute.

THE ROOTS OF THE BRINE DISPOSAL PROBLEMThis brine disposal problem has its roots in how the NF/RO technology operates. NF/RO technology works by employing a semi-permeable membrane to act as a physical barrier blocking the passage of contaminants while forcing treated water, under pressure, to pass through the membrane.

But NF/RO membranes are nonselective in their removal of contaminants. Harmless constituents like silica or carbonates and sulfates of calcium, barium or other ions are concentrated in the brine stream, along with the targeted contaminants.

Ultimately, the concentration of these constituents exceeds their solubility limits, causing scale to precipitate on the membrane’s surface. The accumulated scale obstructs the flow of treated water through the membrane, limiting the amount of water that can be treated by the membrane.

The measure of how much treated water a membrane can produce from the water it is supplied is termed the recovery. Recovery is simply calculated by dividing the amount of treated water produced by the membrane by the amount of water fed to the membrane, or

Where Qt = treated water flow and Qf = feed water flow.

One of the keys to solving the brine disposal problem is to prevent scalants from forming on the membrane by increasing their solubility. If this can be done, recovery can increase. As a result water is used more efficiently and the disposal problem is simplified.

THE ZERO DISCHARGE DESALINATION PROCESS AND ELECTRODIALYSIS METATHESIS Zero Discharge Desalination is built around a variation of the electrodialysis (ED) technology called electrodialysis metathesis (EDM). Similar to NF/RO, ED is a membrane based technology. But unlike NF/RO, which depends on pressure, ED uses an electric field to move positively and negatively charged (ionic) contaminants through positively or negatively charged membranes.

In ED units, membranes of the same charge as the contaminant block passage of the contaminant through the membrane, while membranes with opposite charge allow the contaminant to pass. By cleverly positioning charged membranes next to each other in an ED unit, alternating compartments of diluted (free of ionic contaminant) and enriched (concentrated ionic contaminant) water are produced.

Conceptually, NF/RO can be thought of as using pressure to separate water from the contaminant, while ED uses an electric field to separate the contaminant from the water.

Electrodialysis metathesis takes the ED process one step further by adding compartments to the ED unit that separate and then pair ions in a metathesis process. Metathesis consists of exchanging the cations and anions between two salts.

The advantage of metathesis process is that it can pair ions so that the solubility of the salts formed after the metathesis is greater than the solubility of the original salt. The following is an example of the metathesis process based on calcium sulfate (CaSO4), a scalant whose formation frequently limits the recovery of a NF/RO membranes, and sodium chloride (NaCl):

After metathesis, the calcium of the calcium sulfate is paired with chloride from the sodium chloride to form calcium chloride (CaCl2) while the sulfate of calcium sulfate is paired with the sodium from the sodium chloride to form sodium sulfate (Na2SO4).

These salts are 15 times and 35 times more soluble respectively than CaSO4. The practical result of the exchange and pairing of ions to form CaCL2 and Na2SO4 from CaSO4 and 2NaCl is that the recovery is no longer limited by the scaling caused by the precipitation of CaSO4. Instead, recovery is limited by far more soluble CaCL2 and Na2SO4.

It should be noted that charge balance must be maintained by the metathesis process; hence two Na+ and two Cl- are required for each Ca2+ and SO4

2- undergoing metathesis. By weight, 0.85 lbs. of NaCl must be supplied for each pound of CaSO4 undergoing metathesis. Even for a relatively small drinking water treatment system, say in the 1 million gallon per day (MGD) category, several tons of salt per day could be required, depending on water quality.

% Recovery = 100 x Qt

Qf

CaSO4 + 2NaCl Na2SO4 + CaCl2

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INTEGRATING EDM INTO AN OVERALL TREATMENT PROCESSThe ZDD process is built around the unique capabilities of the EDM to modify the brine stream so that it only contains highly soluble salts. By combining the EDM with traditional NF technology, the ZDD technology is capable of producing excellent water quality while obtaining very high recovery. Figure 1 illustrates the ZDD process.

If the ZDD process is viewed as a ‘black box,’ the primary ‘inputs’ to the process are the water to be treated, the salt solution supplying NaCl to metathesis process, and electrical power to operate the pumps of the NF unit and energize the EDM.

The ‘outputs’ of the process are the treated water, which must be disinfected prior to consumption, and the two waste streams generated by the metathesis process in the EDM. These waste

streams contain the ions responsible scaling and are termed the mixed sodium and mixed chloride streams. These streams can be disposed by evaporation ponds or deep well injection.

Water in the brine streams disposed of by evaporation or injection is a lost water resource. But because the ZDD process can obtain recoveries in excess of 95 percent, the amount of water lost is substantially less than for traditional NF/RO systems. Future development of the technology may allow for complete recovery of water from the brine stream and the production of economically valuable mineral resources from the solids.

TESTING THE ZDD TECHNOLOGYThe Colorado Zero Liquid Discharge

Project considered several different ways that the ZDD technology could be implement by drinking water utilities to assist in:

• Using water resources as efficiently as possible (e.g. maximizing recovery)

• Disposing of the brine in an environmentally acceptable manner

Ultimately, two approaches for employing the technology were pilot tested. The first was a ‘greenfield’ approach, simulating a ZDD plant specifically built to treat a brackish groundwater source. The second was ‘retrofit’ approach, simulating a ZDD plant treating the brine stream of an existing NF/RO plant.

The greenfield approach was pilot tested at La Junta, Colo., using the existing RO plant groundwater source. The retrofit approach was pilot tested at Brighton, Colo., using concentrate from the existing RO treatment plant.

The water quality goal for both pilot tests was to produce treated water suitable used for potable consumption. For the La Junta (greenfield) plant test, the recovery goal was 98 percent. For the Brighton (retrofit) test, the recovery goal was to simulate increasing the existing RO plant recovery from 80 to 98 percent.

PILOT TEST RESULTSFor the La Junta pilot test, the ZDD technology consistently produced treated water suitable for potable consumption while averaging 96.5 percent recovery. Enough performance and operational data for

T E S T M AT R IX FO R ZD D T ECH N O LO GY

LOCATION DURATION CONFIGURATION WATER SOURCE

La Junta, CO May–October 2012 Greenfield ZDD plant Brackish groundwater source

Brighton, CO May–October 2013 Retrofit ZDD plant Existing RO plant brine

S U M M A RY O F P I LOT T E S T R E S U LT S

LOCATION WATER TREATEDMEASURED RECOVERY

TREATED WATER QUALITY

SUFFICIENT PERFORMANCE DATA COLLECTED FOR COST

ANALYSIS?

La Junta, CO Brackish groundwater(1200 mg/L TDS) 96.5% Suitable for potable

consumption Yes

Brighton, CO RO Plant Concentrate(4200 mg/L TDS)

97%–98%

Suitable for potable consumption No

Mixed Cl Salt

Source Water NF FeedFinished Water

Nanofilter (NF)

Mixed Na Salt

EDM Diluate

Internal EDM Diluate Recycle to EDM Feed

NF Concentrate

EDM FeedNaCl

Figure 1. Zero Desicharge Desalination Process

Electrodialysis Metathesis

(EDM)

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For more information about this article, please contact Phil Brandhuber at Philip.Brandhuber@hdrinc.com.

T Y PI C A L T R E ATM EN T P ER FO R M A N CE O F ZD D P I LOT P L A N T— G R EEN FI EL D T E S T AT L A J U N TA

PARAMETER UNITRAW

WATERTREATED WATER*

SYSTEM REMOVAL (%)

Calcium mg/L 153 4 97%

Magnesium mg/L 65 1 98%

Potassium mg/L 6 1 81%

Sodium mg/L 108 30 72%

Chloride mg/L 42 17 59%

Nitrate mg/L NO3 4 2 46%

Sulfate mg/L 540 4 99%

Bicarbonate mg/L 260 42 84%

TDS mg/L 980 67 93%

Alkalinity mg/L CaCO3

213 34 84%

Conductivity uS/cm 1571 150 90%

pH SU 7.69 7.62 –

Silica mg/L SiO2 13 11 14%

*NF permeate

the ZDD system was collected for the project team to prepare a life cycle cost estimate of a greenfield ZDD plant treating La Junta groundwater.

The Brighton pilot results—treating the brine from the existing plant—were less encouraging. Many operational issues were encountered during the Brighton test. Ultimately, the volume of water that could be treated by the pilot plant was approximately 50 percent of the flow predicted for the test.

Although the ZDD system consistently produced acceptable water quality, and eventually reached 97 to 98 percent recovery, the project team was unable to collect enough performance and operating data from the Brighton test to independently complete a cost estimate for the process.

Neither the La Junta nor Brighton the test was of long enough continuous operation to gain insight into the extended performance of the ZDD process or to investigate what periodic maintenance would be required to maintain the system’s performance.

A life cycle cost for analysis for a greenfield full-scale ZDD plant treating La Junta source water to Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requirements at 96 percent recovery was developed. The estimate was based a ZDD plant capable of producing 5.2 MGD with an average production of 1.6 MGD. The estimate assumed the brine produced by the ZDD plant would be sent to six, five-acre evaporation ponds for final disposal.

The estimate was based on La Junta pilot test results and equipment cost estimates provided by the ZDD vendor. The estimated life cycle cost for the ZDD technology ranges from $2.98 to $4.60 per 1,000 gallons.

The lower end of the cost estimate is based on performance predictions made by the vendor assuming less membrane area per volume of water treated, greater ionic fluxes and greater recovery than were verified during the pilot test.

The upper end of the cost estimate is based on the configuration evaluated by the La Junta test. Overall, these costs compare favorably with other brine minimization technologies reviewed by the project.

SUMMING UPBrine disposal is a difficult problem for which there is no easy answer. The Colorado Zero Liquid Discharge Project completed extensive pilot testing of a new technology that shows great promise in providing utilities a membrane treatment alternative that uses their water resource more efficiently, while solving the brine disposal problem for inland NF/RO plants.

The ZDD technology demonstrated the ability to produce excellent water quality and obtain very high recovery. This technology has good potential for reducing the volume of concentrate produced by membrane plants. With additional development focused on reducing cost, increasing reliability and simplifying its operation, the process will be a valuable tool for solving the brine disposal problem.

The final report for the project is available from the Water Environment Research Foundation at www.werf.org/a/ka/Search/ResearchProfile.aspx?ReportId=WERF5T10

Phil Brandhuber, HDR project manager, and Kerry Howe, University of New Mexico professor and one of the technical advisors on the project, checking the control panel that monitors the EDM unit.

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Some visions take years to be fully realized. That is the case of the C-44

Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area (STA) Project being built by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District (USACE) near Indiantown, Fla.

The project started nearly a decade ago as part of SFWMD’s Acceler8 Program, which was put in place to expedite multiple Everglades restoration projects through streamlined design, permitting and construction processes.

Today a portion of the C-44 Project has been realized, with additional construction packages being initiated by SFWMD and USACE in the coming year. It is anticipated the project will be fully operational by 2020.

The C-44 Project is just one component of a much larger environmental enhancement program to improve the water quality in the St. Lucie Estuary. The dual purposes of the C-44 Project include providing flow attenuation and reduction of nutrient loading from the C-44 Basin. The C-44 Basin is traversed by the C-44 Canal connecting Lake Okeechobee to the St Lucie Estuary.

These goals will be accomplished with a pump station, an above ground reservoir, an STA (constructed wetland), miles of canals, and numerous water control structures. The project, like many other Everglades restoration projects, is a 50-50 cost-share between the state of Florida and the federal government.

In this case, both entities are finalizing design and procuring construction contracts to collectively build this large project. The project site sits on 12,000 acres of land formally used for citrus groves situated north of the C-44 Canal, roughly half way between Lake

By Katie Duty Water Resources Market Sector Leader, Tampa, FL

A Vision Long in the MakingThe C-44 Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area Project

Okeechobee and the Atlantic Ocean in Martin County.

SFWMD currently owns all of the land and will operate and maintain the project upon construction completion.

With the purchase of the property to be used as the project site, the SFWMD became the largest land owner in a local self-taxing water control district that provides irrigation water for agricultural purposes for the various land owners in the district.

Unfortunately, the project construction requires district lands formerly utilized for pumping stations and canals for moving irrigation water to its members. To remedy this situation, as part of the project, SFWMD is relocating its pump station, re-purposing some canals and regrading some other canals.

A temporary relocation was performed several years ago to allow for some early C-44 Project feature construction, and the final reconfiguration of the 298 district water supply system will be completed in the next year or so to decouple the district separately from the C-44 Project.

In addition to reconfiguring this system, SFWMD and the USACE have partnered with these same adjacent land owners during construction for access to the site from various local roads also used by these residents and land owners.

The contractors are required to take responsibility for the roads condition, perform pre-construction surveys and return the roads to equal or better condition.

In addition to being a major infrastructure project, the C-44 Project has some unique features. The first is how water will flow around site. The water will flow

up the 4 mile intake canal, drawn by the 4 electrically-driven pumps with a total capacity of 1100 cubic feet per second within the pump station.

This pump station will lift the water over 40 feet vertically into the above ground reservoir, which has 54,000 acre-feet of storage available across 3,400 acres. Water then exits the reservoir and moves through all the remaining portions of the site by gravity.

Flows attenuated by the reservoir will flow through a gated discharge structure to a distribution canal, followed by gated inlet structures to the STAs. The six STA cells have been designed to allow for gradual and shallow sheet flow to weir outflow structures to collection canals and eventually back to the C-44 Canal over a fixed crest spillway.

Another unique feature of this project is how the STA has been designed, constructed and will be operated compared to other similar STA projects in the area. The C-44 STA will have a flat bottom in each cell, which will require grading of the former citrus grove beds, swales and ditches.

This flat bottom will allow for a relatively constant 1.5-foot water depth, which is preferred for emergent aquatic vegetation, increasing upheaval of nutrients. The outlet weir structure will have adjustable plates that will allow for optimization of each STA cell for flow and retention time preferences over the life of the project.

Because the STA cell water source is a reservoir, the cells will be able to function with greater stability due to a more consistent availability of water. Other STA cells in the area do not have this large volume of water available for inflow and are tied to water availability from an adjacent canal.

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For more information about this article, please contact Katie Duty at Katie.Duty@hdrinc.com.

As a result they often go dry when there is insufficient water, which is detrimental to long-term performance as the nutrients are re-released from the soil upon hydration the next time water is added to the cell.

At other times these same cells experience flood conditions with too much water for the emergent vegetation to survive because flows need to be diverted due to high volumes of water in the area. In this instance, the C-44 Reservoir will hold the high volume of water and allow the STA cells to receive the same consistent amount of water through various hydro-metrological conditions.

One of the most innovative elements of the C-44 Project was the SFWMD’s decision to construct test cells as part of the design process to test various construction methodologies and evaluate some onsite design considerations for incorporation into plans and specifications being developed for the larger project.

The test cell program was built on a 475-acre corner of the 12,000-acre site in the footprint of the future reservoir. The area included the construction of two six-acre reservoirs and a pair of six-acre STA cells, and once constructed the site was operated and monitored for a year.

The reservoirs incorporated different internal drain configurations and different soil-cement mix design and placement methods. The reservoirs also were instrumented with numerous piezometers in the embankment and in the surrounding ground to evaluate the groundwater impacts from storing 15 feet of water above ground in the reservoirs.

The year-long monitoring of the reservoirs included filling and draining cycles as well as long-term steady-state levels to evaluate seepage.

As a result of this monitoring program for the reservoirs, it was determined that the seepage canal around the perimeter of the embankment was located too close to the reservoir berm and not deep enough to effectively intercept and capture seepage, based on construction of embankments with the onsite materials.

This allowed the final design to be updated to intentionally intercept more of the groundwater seeping from the reservoir, which will limit impacts to adjacent property owners following the construction of the full 54,000-acre-foot reservoir.

The STA cells included planting one cell with native emergent vegetation while the other allowed for natural recruitment of plants, such as Typha species. At the time of the test cell construction, an examination was being held as to the need to deliberately plant all 6,300 acres of the future C-44 STA cells or if allowing plants to naturally recruit to the cells would be sufficient.

The cost and time to plant the larger C-44 Project STA would be in the scale of millions of dollars and require hands-on maintenance; however, the value from doing so was unknown.

Through the year-long monitoring of the STA cells, it was determined that the labor-intensive planting was not necessary to get

the desired plant communities and density for nutrient uptake, one of the main goals of the C-44 Project.

This allowed the specifications for the final C-44 Project design to be modified to not require the contractor to plant the STAs and the construction cost estimates adjusted to reflect this change, saving money for the project overall.

Through innovative planning and design processes and public involvement, the C-44 Reservoir and STA Project vision will not be shelved and unrealized. By working through the challenges collaboratively with the state, federal and local agencies, HDR has been proud to partner with both the SFWMD and the USACE and soon put into operation a project to not only enhance the environmental conditions, but the local economy as well.

The SFWMD built, and operated for a year, a reservoir and STA test cells on approximately 500 acres of the 12,000- acre site to gain site-specific lessons on construction and

operations of the in-progress design.

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Autumn reflection of trees on Mirror Pond, Bend, Oregon.

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For a key agricultural basin in the Pacific Northwest, commitment to and strategic engagement with local

stakeholders, resource agencies and political interests are critical to moving forward with basin planning.

Water for Irrigation, Streams, and Economy (WISE) represents stakeholders in the Rogue River Basin (Bear Creek and Little Butte Creek) in southern Oregon. WISE is a multi-faceted partnership between water users and stakeholders working to improve water quality and quantity in the Bear Creek and Little Butte Creek watersheds for irrigation, aquatic habitat and other uses in an economically and environmentally feasible manner.

The project involves the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and large agricultural interests with integral municipal and fisheries interests. HDR was involved in the early planning stages and continues to be engaged and committed to implementing effective water management solutions.

WISE officially was formed in the early 2000s, although water management needs were identified almost two decades earlier because of unreliable irrigation water supplies during drought years and degraded water quantity and quality for native anadromous salmonids and other uses during low-flow periods.

By Ronan Igloria Project Manager, Portland, OR

WISE–Creativity, Flexibility (and Patience) to Fund a Large Water Supply Reliability Project

Key goals of the WISE project include improving: • Efficiency of water deliveries and water supply reliability to

the irrigation districts • Water conservation through both system-wide and on-farm

irrigation improvements • Water quantity, water quality and water reliability for native

anadromous salmonids • Aesthetics and recreation values of reservoirs, streams,

and rivers

The improved water quantity and quality in the watershed also benefits the municipalities in the watershed (Cities of Medford and Ashland).

WISE includes a range of partner interests from three irrigation districts, two cities and a county. In addition to the WISE partners, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau of Reclamation), Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) are key agency partners.

Members from several stakeholder organizations (e.g. Farm Bureau and Oregon Water Trust) are also involved. Ultimately, the Bureau of Reclamation was designated lead agency

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in preparing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance document.

In 2003, WISE secured an EPA grant and contracted with HDR to complete the first phase of a feasibility study and environmental impact study (FS/EIS). However, administrative issues, including the inability to identify a lead agency for the NEPA process, caused long delays in the project schedule.

This ultimately resulted in needing to re-scope the FS/EIS as a preliminary feasibility study to meet the funding window of the grant. HDR worked with WISE to restructure the preliminary feasibility study, which was completed in 2010. The idea was to focus the remaining viable elements and formulate them into formal alternatives, with a preferred alternative identified in the subsequent FS/EIS phase of the project.

The project team had to ensure that the technical work met the grant requirements, and that strategic decisions were made regarding outreach and other activities to position WISE to continue moving the project forward as additional funding became available. These activities included:

• Completing scoping activities such as the purpose and need and outreach activities in a way anticipated to satisfy NEPA requirements

• Defining the preliminary feasibility study project alternatives strategically to allow WISE to re-package them into smaller, discrete alternatives for future EIS/EA documents efforts

• Developing tools that could be leveraged for future alternatives analysis. For example, the MODSIM water allocation model used to quantify conserved water could be used to quantify alternative benefits for the economic analysis.

• Conducting outreach and networking politically with state and federal agencies and representatives to secure funding for future phases.

One of the critical factors to move WISE forward was engaging with the Bureau of Reclamation immediately after the preliminary feasibility study was completed to conduct a value planning study. Conducting value planning allowed the Bureau of Reclamation to buy in to the project internally and understand benefits when discussing the project during budget appropriations.

After the value planning study was completed, HDR also supported the preliminary economic analysis conducted by the Bureau of Reclamation by providing hydropower generation feasibility analysis with the canal piping alternative.

WISE engaged the Oregon governor’s office and state legislators to educate them about the goals and benefits of the project from both resource/environmental and economic standpoints. The message resonated as the state and region was working through effects of the recession.

WISE also communicated regularly with Oregon’s federal delegation to understand funding opportunities through Department of Interior and to identify other grant opportunities.

After months of meetings and outreach efforts, WISE realized that a funding package to complete a full FS/EIS would be difficult to secure either from state or federal sources. Therefore, the approach that WISE took was to break out project components that could be funded incrementally. For example, a grant through the Oregon Water Resources Department was used to fund the preliminary economic analysis.

While direct federal funding has yet to be secured, the outreach, especially to the governor’s office, has proven successful. In the most recent budgeting process, the state included funding for WISE of $1.5 million that allowed the project to move the feasibility study forward for the piping alternative.

This most recent funding from Oregon was used to establish an intergovernmental agreement between the state and the Bureau of Reclamation. Because the funding was not sufficient to complete a full FS/EIS for the entire WISE project, the project alternative was focused on the canal piping option only.

The feasibility study/preliminary design of the piping alternative will allow the Bureau of Reclamation to refine the economic analysis. WISE plans to work with the Bureau of Reclamation to conduct similar FS/EIS for other potential components including interbasin transfer and increased storage of existing reservoirs.

But moving forward with the canal piping improvements separately allows the basin to gain benefits without being tied to the potentially more contentious alternatives from a permitting perspective.

WISE continues to evaluate funding leads and options. For example, WISE worked with the governor’s office (Oregon Solutions) to assess public-private-partnership (P3) options with the Oregon Infrastructure Finance Authority (IFA).

This may be the only option for implementing the full program, which could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars if all possible components of the project are included (full piped irrigation system, water reuse, dam raise and water basin transfer).

In the end, the economic analysis and fiscal reality may still push WISE away from a mega-scale project to implementing smaller project components, e.g. piping segments of canals over many years. But as traditional federal funding sources shrink, the lesson learned is that flexibility and creativity in the planning phase is necessary to continue moving forward, especially with large infrastructure projects.

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(continued from page 13)

For more information about this article, please contact Kathryn Jones at kathryn.jones@hdrinc.com.

Several smaller agreements have consolidated supply and operations between suburban communities. HDR is assisting Met Council in the examination of cooperative, regional systems in other parts of the county to develop an understanding of the complexities of these systems, and to see how costs can be fairly allocated across all users of a common regional resource.

These examples will provide an examination of various regulatory drivers and organizational frameworks through which cooperative solutions could be implemented.

MOVING TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE FUTUREThe ongoing regional studies will provide guidance and technical basis to inform future water supply decisions in the region. These efforts will ultimately lead to a regional roadmap to achieve

sustainable and reliable water supply in an affordable and practical manner.

HDR’s ongoing work will help the council and communities understand water supply alternatives and provide a potential framework for cooperative solutions should the state limit withdrawals from groundwater resources in the future.

In comparison with many metropolitan areas throughout the country and around the world, the Twin Cities has the advantage of being rich in water resources. Met Council’s water supply planning work is helping communities recognize the limitations of those resources and, with HDR’s help, understand available alternatives.

With a plan to use and manage available resources more effectively, communities will have the tools needed to ensure a sustainable water supply and enjoy continued prosperity.