Utility assessments help to identify risks, needs, valuations and the ability of a utility to accommodate growth. This service offers a lot of insight into remaining infrastructure capacity, performance levels, regulatory standing, issues and potential future liabilities of water and wastewater systems. BCS Management sought Walden Environmental Engineering’s services to perform an assessment of the collection system infrastructure and wastewater treatment plants of multiple regional sewer districts (RSDs) in Huntington County, Indiana.
The following summarizes the findings from our assessments of the infrastructure of the Huntington County RSDs.
Huntington County, Indiana RSD Study
Walden Environmental Engineering was brought on to assist with the review and assessment of several water and wastewater facilities serving four regional districts and the community of Mount Etna located in Huntington County, IN.
The project required a comprehensive assessment of the infrastructure capacity, performance levels and regulatory standing, issues and potential future liabilities of the selected water and wastewater systems.
The review and assessment helped to confirm the ability of each of the systems to grow and expand, consider cooperative consolidations or other efficiencies and service offerings.
The Process
Information Review
Walden reviewed the available information already collected regarding each area facility, its performance and regulatory standing with local, state and federal agencies.
Site Visits
After the initial review, Walden performed site visits of each of the Districts and Mount Etna to review each of the wastewater systems and available regulatory records, reports, agreements, previous studies and to interview knowledgeable staff or other resources.
Database Review
The next step was to review utility and regulatory databases, regulatory files and other state and federal resources and contact regulatory staff and agency inspectors to acquire necessary information to complete the assessments of the Districts and Mount Etna.
Creation of Materials
Walden prepared tables, asset listings, photograph logs with assessment descriptions of current performance levels of facilities. The reported information presented included confirmation of the hydraulic capacity, treatment efficiencies, pollutant removal success and promulgating regulatory programs that may require upgrades in the future.
Reporting
Walden completed preliminary issuance of the study by preparing a report of findings and results describing the existing facilities and capacities of the RSDs and the Town of Mount Etna.
Results
After a comprehensive assessment, Walden found no significant failures or indications of environmental or regulatory liabilities in each of the reviewed systems. Each of the systems were facing certain specific challenges. However, the issues found were not uncommon for similar entities in Indiana. Walden determined that each system has capacity for the consideration of growth, environmental stewardship or public health improvements.
Because of this study, BCS Management was able to confirm that these RSDs could consider consolidation in the future in an effort to streamline operations and maintain user rates.