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Progress on the Integrated Pipeline Project
IPL contractors placing a section of pipe in an open-cut tie-in to an interconnect facility.
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or nearly 100 years, the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) has been providing flood-control services along the Fort Worth floodway and water supply services to 11 counties. Dallas Water Utilities (DWU) has been providing water to its service area for over 125 years. Combined, TRWD’s and Dallas’s service populations are in the 5.75–6 million range. Population growth, climate variability, greater distance to sources, bonding capability, debt service, rates, politics, regulations, legislation, and capital and life-cycle costs are all driving state and local agencies to partner and share regional resources and conveyances, and TRWD and DWU are not exceptions. The rapid growth of both agencies’ service areas has necessitated the design and construction of an ambitious new joint pipeline project, the Integrated Pipeline (IPL) project, a raw water supply program that integrates the TRWD and DWU water supplies from Lake Palestine, Cedar Creek Reservoir, and Richland Chambers Reservoir. The IPL will be designed and constructed over the next 20 years, and when operational, will deliver up to 350 million gallons per day (MGD) of water to the TRWD and Dallas service areas. In this interview, IPL Program Manager Ed Weaver and IPL Resident Engineer Shelly Hattan update us on the progress of the project. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions.
12 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | March 2021
Shelly Hattan: I worked my way through school, so I graduated later. I’m a civil engineer, and I ended up coming to work for TRWD straight out of college. I stayed here for about 2½ years before leaving for several years. I had the great opportunity to come back to TRWD just before this project was getting started. During my first week back, about 12 years ago, we started interviewing engineers for the program manager position. I’ve been in the field on this project for the past 6 years. I worked to get information for the designers, and during construction, I worked as a construction manager assistant. I am a certified construction manager and a licensed professional engineer. In addition, I have a master of science degree in water resources from the University of Texas at Arlington. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about TRWD. Ed Weaver: TRWD provides raw water to our customers, who then treat and distribute the water; Dallas, on the other hand, does raw water transmission, water treatment, and distribution. TRWD has five existing pipeline systems that transport raw water from Cedar Creek and Richland Chambers Reservoirs in East Texas to Arlington, Benbrook, and Eagle Mountain Reservoirs in and around Fort Worth. These pipeline systems were put in service in 1973, 1987, municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF TRWD.
Ed Weaver: TRWD is the only job I have had since high school. I started out in the welding shop and worked up from there through construction inspection, construction management, pipeline systems operations and maintenance, systems automation, and engineering. At the same time, I
went to school at night, earning associate, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees. Presently, I am working on a systems engineering PhD at Colorado State University, focusing on a systems approach to regional water supply planning. I currently serve as the IPL program manager.
