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ECUA
KEEPING FLORIDA WATER FRESH The ECUA has won water quality awards, has an elected board that enables it to act like a private company, and is building a new wastewater treatment facility in record time and under budget.
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UTILITIES | CORPORATE PROFILE
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bringing
better water to the
emerald coast
2 The Emerald Coast Utilities Authority (ECUA) has many unique factors that affect Florida’s panhandle region, including Escambia County and the City of Pensacola where it operates. It has won water quality awards, has an elected board that enables it to act like a private company, and is building a new wastewater treatment facility in record time and under budget. Three out of the past five years the company has received awards from the American Water Works Association for having the best tasting water in region nine of their Florida section. This region encompasses the four northwesternmost counties of Florida. To participate in this contest, a utility cannot have any violations of health or regulatory codes. And ECUA prides itself on its high quality water and its abundant water supply due to the prolific Sand-and-Gravel Aquifer. ECUA has an unusual operating structure. It has a five-member, publicly elected board that provides oversight, allowing what is essentially a government agency to operate much like a private sector business. “We operate comparably to a private business with some public oversight from the board,” said executive director, Stephen E. Sorrell. The board is responsible for resource allocation and major organizational policy, while the day-to-day operations are the full responsibility of the staff. Winter 2009 3
3 MANSFIELD Mansfield Industrial is a world class provider of industrial coatings, insulation, fireproofing, refractory, industrial cleaning, scaffolding, metal building erection and roofing services. In addition to having worked with ECUA over the last 30 years, they have worked on projects like the Pensacola CRWF wastewater treatment facility. For this project, Mansfield provided specialty concrete coating and linings. Mansfield is responsible for piping and painting of pipe coating, equipment painting, architectural painting, carbon steel structural painting and water proofing coatings. Mansfield
In operation since 1981, ECUA handles water, wastewater, and solid waste collection. It has 32 deep wells and is permitted to pump more than 70 million gallons of potable drinking water per day. “One of the recent efficiencies we’ve instituted was our Automated Meter Reading (AMR) Program. Automated meters replaced approximately 95,000 manuallyread meters over the last few years, allowing for a dramatic reduction in personnel and processing costs, while increasing accuracy and productivity,” Sorrell added. The company runs three wastewater treatment plants, including the Main Street plant that is being replaced in an impressively
quick and financially smooth way. Affectionately called “Ol’ Stinky” by Sorrell, the Main Street plant has been around since 1937. It is located on the southwest side of downtown Pensacola and employs an activated sludge process that can emit odors. A study showed that it would be more beneficial to build a new facility rather than upgrade the existing plant. What’s even more exciting for the Authority, and the community as a whole, is that this new plant will have 100% industrial reuse of the effluent, eliminating the surface-water discharge currently in place at the Main Street facility. The odor given off from the old plant can be oppressive. “Most people in Pensacola
UTILITIES | CORPORATE PROFILE
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do not want to live near the plant,” Sorrell said. “It will be a huge economic development shot in the arm for Pensacola to have approximately 200 acres of new frontier to develop in the downtown area once the plant is replaced.” Sorrell explained that the disappearance of the old plant will lead to investors converging on the area; the economic stimulus to the local community will be a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the city.” The new facility will be called the Central Water Reclamation Facility (CWRF) and will be incorporating state of the art on-site generation technology for its disinfection solutions. It is being built to withstand a category 5 hurricane and 191-mph wind gusts; it will be built 100 feet above sea level with 25 miles of new ductile iron transmission pipeline. The project is now on target to start in August 2010. The $316 million-budgeted project is currently close to $11 million Winter 2009 5
CORPORATE PROFILE | UTILITIES
under budget. Because Hurricane Ivan hit the Main Street plant in 2004, ECUA was able to acquire $134 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to repair the damage that occurred. The ECUA Board decided to replace the plant in lieu of upgrading and armoring “Ol’ Stinky”. The elected board members took a “leap of faith” empowering the Authority’s staff to make decisions for the project and to assume the financial authority normally vested in the board. The lack of need for public meetings to approve change orders and to make construction decisions greatly accelerated the construction schedule, significantly reducing the cost of the project. “This is a tremendous win for the entire community,” Sorrell said. “It’s the largest public works-type project in Escambia County, and it will have a very significant impact on the long term economy,
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UTILITIES | CORPORATE PROFILE
environment, and aesthetic effects on this region.” ECUA has low water rates of $1.78 per thousand gallons of potable water. “We have some of the most economical water in our area. About one half to one third as much as some other purveyors,” Sorrell said. The company serves approximately 250,000 people and maintains over 2000 miles of water mains. Any revenues in excess of the operating costs go back into the system for capital improvements, which in turn keeps rates low. There isn’t any siphoning of the revenue stream to fund other governmental operations— something that occurs in many other agencies. Residential refuse, recycling, hazardous waste, and bulk collections are part of the company’s solid waste collection department operations. There are about 74,000 customers for solid waste, 1,000 of those are commercial customers. The company has 550 employees and many have licenses of various levels from the state of Florida. ECUA’s engineering staff includes civil,
mechanical, and chemical engineers. The company compensates its engineers for maintaining their professional licenses. There is also a state-certified lab staffed by chemists for water quality analyses. The laboratory staff conducts approximately 15,000 water quality tests each year. Safety training is ongoing and there is an incentive program for safe practices within the solid waste collection department. Since the collection crews operate $230,000 fully automated trucks that will incur costly repair costs for any degree of damage, workers receive a $300 incentive for each quarter they do not have an at-fault accident. “Since implementation, the number of incidents has dropped sharply,” Sorrell said. Before coming to ECUA, Sorrell worked as a professional engineer, finance director, assistant city manager, and city manager in southwest Ohio. He took over as ECUA’s executive director in late 2002 and gives much credit to the success of the company to those with whom he works. “I give a lot of credit to the elected board and to our competent, dependable
staff,” he said. Looking to the future, Sorrell said he hopes to see the company continue to run so efficiently. And with a new wastewater treatment facility being completed ahead of schedule and under budget, efficiency is something that comes naturally to ECUA. ELT 1. Pensacola Beach, Pensacola, Fla. Photo by Stephanie Hess. 2. ECUA executive director, Stephen E. Sorrell Photo courtesey of ECUA. 3. Central Water Reclamation Facility under construction 25 miles North of Pensacola, Fla. Once the facility is completed, the ECUA will shut down the Main St. Plant, a process expected to take several months. Photo courtesey of ECUA. 4. Perdidio Key, Fla. Post Hurricane Ivan recovery. Photo courtesey of ECUA. 5. Pensacola Beach, Fla. Three dolphin decorated water tanks, located at the base of the Bob Sikes Bridge, house the water for the Santa Rosa Island community. Photo by Stephanie Hess.
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