PERC Water, a water infrastructure company, was selected by the city council in Adelanto, Calif., to take over the operation and maintenance of their wastewater treatment facility and immediately begin designing an expansion of that facility.
Adelanto has a population of 31,000. Due to a steady stream of new residents, Adelanto began an expansion of their original wastewater treatment facility in 2007, but progress remained at a standstill four years later, resulting in a cease and desist order from the Regional Water Quality Control Board. Without the necessary capacity, the city has had to divert a significant portion of their wastewater to a regional facility.
"Currently the city's wastewater treatment facility is undersized to meet the incoming flow," said D. James Hart, city manager of Adelanto. "There has been an effort to expand the plant since 2007. However, the city and contractor ran into difficulties that would forestall completion of the expansion within the time lines required by the regional water board. As a result, the city was under the threat of having a connection ban imposed. Through the diligent effort of the city team, the connection ban was not imposed, and the city needed to move quickly to finalize the expansion."
Under the terms of the contract, PERC Water will implement their "Turn Around Plan" (TAP), a program designed to assist water and wastewater infrastructure owners in restructuring their operations and upgrading their facilities to bring them into compliance in an economical manner. PERC Water is contracted to operate the facility for seven years and will implement their TAP, performing the necessary upgrades to reach a treatment capacity of 4 million gal per day by mid 2013.
This will satisfy the requirements of the order and allow the city to stop diverting the excess wastewater to the regional facility. As a result of PERC Water's integrated design-build-operate team, they have the in-house expertise necessary to perform all of the upgrades and expansions necessary to bring the Adelanto facility into compliance and treat all of its wastewater.
"The city was pleased to select PERC Water as the company to finalize the wastewater plant expansion and to come in as the city's plant operator once the plant is expanded," said Hart. "As the city staff reviewed proposals and interviewed prospects, it became clear that PERC Water shared the same philosophy regarding the urgency to finish the plant expansion and had highly skilled staff who would get the expansion completed timely. Additionally, PERC Water was willing to work under a guaranteed price and that was attractive to the city because it ensured the city council and public that there are no hidden costs or over runs that would inflate the final price. This was truly a transparent process."
Source: PERC Water Corp.; PR Newswire
