Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Utilities Department

TO:	David L. Corliss – City Manager Cynthia Wagner - Assistant City Manager Diane Stoddard - Assistant City Manager
FROM: CC:	Mike Lawless – Asst. Director of Utilities Dave Wagner – Director of Utilities
	Philip Ciesielski – Asst. Director of Utilities Scott McCullough, Director of Planning & Development Services David Guntert, GIS Planner
Date:	October 20, 2010
RE:	October 26, 2010 Agenda Item – Wastewater Master Plan Public Participation Summary

Please include the following item on the City Commission Agenda for consideration at the October 26, 2010 meeting:

Approval of the population projections and master plan boundary for the Wastewater Master Plan following the completion of the Public Participation Process.

Project Details

The current Wastewater Master Plan was completed in 2003 and supersedes the 1995 Wastewater Master Plan. Interim updates focusing on specific areas of the City have been made, with the most recent involving the City’s northwest and southeast areas. The current Master Plan is more than five years old and based on data that is six or more years old.

The table below provides a comparison of the 2009 Wastewater Master Plan to the 2003 Wastewater Master Plan.

	2003 Master Plan	2009 Master Plan
Plan Scope	Water & Wastewater	Wastewater
Design Years	2000, 2010 & 2025	2010, 2020 & 2030
Criteria to Trigger Construction	Design year	Population/flow and regulatory requirements
Flow Meters	6	31
Rain Gages	4	13
Data Collection Time	2 months	35 months; Data Collection is on-going
Wastewater System Modeled	Trunk System	Entire System
GIS Integration	No	Yes
City Owned Wastewater Model	No	Yes
Basin Service Plans	No	Yes
Study Area	UGA – T2025	UGA – T2030

Since completion of the 2003 Wastewater Master Plan, the Department has placed a great deal of emphasis and effort on building comprehensive sewer and water GIS data sets. In addition to the GIS data, flow metering and rainfall data collection have been on going for almost three (3) years. The Department is now seeing the benefit of this investment. As an example, the preparation of the GIS database for the wastewater master plan for Rapid City South Dakota with a sanitary sewer system about 65% of the size of Lawrence was more than $268,000. Flow monitoring for 12 meters and rainfall data collection for a period of 60 days cost more than $107,000. The total cost of Rapid City’s master plans (wastewater and water) was more than $1.2 million.

Project Timeline

March 11, 2008 Request for proposals advertised.
April 25, 2008 Staff received proposals from interested parties.
June 17, 2008 Began negotiations with Burns & McDonnell/BG
May 26, 2009 Authorized to negotiate an engineering services agreement for preparation of wastewater master plan with Burns & McDonnell/BG.
October 13, 2009 Authorized to execute an engineering services agreement with Burns & McDonnell/BG for services in conjunction with the Wastewater Master Plan.
November 10, 2009 Notice to proceed issued to Burns & McDonnell.
December 9, 2009 Project kick-off meeting.
December 16-17, 2009 Modeling software demo was held.
May 4, 2010 Authorized to purchase the wastewater modeling software from Bentley Systems.
May 4, 2010 Staff presented population projections, planning boundary, plan scenarios and public participation.

Project Status

Following the presentation to the City Commission on May 4, staff notified various stakeholder groups of the Master Plan Project and the goal to receive input from the public on the presentation materials. A website that contained all of the presentation materials was created for the project. The stakeholders were directed to the website for the information and the ability to submit comments. In addition to the stakeholder notification, staff made presentations to the Planning Commission on May 24, 2010 and to the Board of County Commissioners on June 16, 2010.

By the middle of July, no comments had been received. The stakeholder group was notified again by email with follow-up phone calls. At the end of July one comment was received from KU Facilities Operations.

Staff met with KU to discuss their water use forecast information. While the information does not suggest modifications to the population projections, it does fall outside of the sewer flows normally associated with the population projections. The information received will be incorporated into the 2020 and 2030 scenarios as an addition to the flows associated with the population projections.

The timing of the Wakarusa Wastewater Treatment Plant (Wakarusa) is dependent on the population projections as well as information that will be developed from the master plan. A draft of the Wakarusa timing memorandum using the population projection information presented in May has concluded the population projections are appropriate for the long term of the master plan. However, for determining the timing of the near term Wakarusa Project a population projection more in line with recent growth trends is more appropriate to use.

Based on the presentations to the Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners, input from KU, and the growth rate adjustment for the timing of the Wakarusa no further changes to the population projection information presented in May are recommended. Upon approval of the Commission, the population data will be ready for Burns & McDonnell to use in completing the master plan.

Action Request: Staff recommends approval of the master plan boundary and population projection information presented in May using the recent growth trend for the timing of the Wakarusa Project.