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Responding to Freezing Temperatures and Main Breaks at the Fort Worth Water Department
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ecord-setting winter storms can pose challenges for any municipal water utility, but they can be especially difficult for a city like Fort Worth, Texas, that is unaccustomed to snow and freezing temperatures. During and after the February 2021 winter storm, the Fort Worth Water Department faced main breaks, frozen equipment, the inability to travel, lack of fuel, and inoperable pump stations and plants, all contributing to large losses of power and water service. In this interview, Mary Gugliuzza, the public relations and communications coordinator for the Fort Worth Water Department, tells Municipal Water Leader about the problems the storm created, how the utility overcame them, and how the city is planning to be better prepared for future disasters. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Mary Gugliuzza: I’ve been with the City of Fort Worth for 25 years. My background is in journalism. I worked for both daily and weekly papers, in tourism for a chamber of commerce, and as an information officer for a hospital and a state mental health/mental disability center before finding my professional home with Fort Worth Water. I held 7 different jobs in 15 years before coming to work for the city. Municipal Water Leader: Please give us an introduction to the city of Fort Worth Water Department, its history, and its current services.
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your distribution system.
14 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | July/August 2021
Mary Gugliuzza: Fort Worth’s distribution system has more than 3,600 miles of pipe, with 30 ground and elevated storage tanks. The utility operates 32 pump stations, including 3 raw water pump stations and 7 high-service pump stations. Our collection system has more than 3,500 miles of pipes and 34 lift stations. The reclaimed water system is about 12 miles long, with 1 pump station. Municipal Water Leader: What was your experience of the February storm? Mary Gugliuzza: In this event, we first had 93 hours of below-freezing temperatures, starting at 5:00 p.m. on February 9 and lasting until February 13. On February 13, temperatures went above the freezing mark for about 3 hours. Then they dipped back down, and we had another 139 consecutive hours below freezing. That second part is when the worst of the weather arrived and the temperatures dipped to their lowest point—4 degrees below zero. We also had some ice and heavy snow. We occasionally get snow in this area, but heavy snow is municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE FORT WORTH WATER DEPARTMENT.
Mary Gugliuzza: Fort Worth Water has been around since about 1882. The city acquired a small private company and grew its water municipal water service from there. We built the Holly pump station in the early 1890s. We completed our first drinking water plant in 1912 and built our first lake in 1914. Today, we have five drinking water treatment plants and one water reclamation plant. We are seeking a permit to build a second water reclamation facility. Our wastewater plant is permitted at 166 million gallons per day (MGD). Our total drinking water capacity is 500 MGD. We serve about 1.3 million people, but that estimate will probably increase when the new census data are released. This includes people within the city limits of Fort Worth, small pockets of unincorporated areas outside the city limits, and other cities and entities to which we provide wholesale water, wastewater, or reclaimed water services. We have 32 drinking water wholesale customers, 23 wastewater customers, and 3 reclaimed water wholesale customers. Our service area is over 400 square miles in size.
A 12-inch ball valve ruptured on a high-service pump at the Eagle Mountain Water Treatment Plant.
