ADVERTISEMENT
Jenna Covington: Future Planning at the North Texas Municipal Water District Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about NTMWD.
The dam at Bois d’Arc Lake, pictured here in June 2021.
T
he North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) provides water, wastewater, and solid waste disposal services to 1.8 million people in a rapidly growing area of Texas north of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. To serve this population through the year 2040, NTMWD is building the first new major reservoir in Texas in 30 years, Bois d’Arc Lake. Jenna Covington has recently risen to head the NTMWD as its new executive director and general manager. In this interview, she tells us about progress on Bois d’Arc Lake, NTMWD’s plans to secure water supplies through 2080, and the district’s experience of the February 2021 Winter Storm Uri. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
8 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | October 2021
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about current progress on the Bois d’Arc Lake reservoir. municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF NTMWD.
Jenna Covington: My education and career have been dedicated to working in the water industry. It’s been a wonderfully rewarding industry to work in because we provide life-sustaining services to our communities. I received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental engineering from Texas Tech University. Upon graduation, I spent a number of years working for a global engineering consulting firm, where I provided assistance to water utilities across northern Texas. A little over 6 years ago, I joined the staff of NTMWD to oversee our wastewater operations function. That was a really rewarding experience. I’m now transitioning into the role of executive director and general manager of the district. I am truly honored, humbled, and excited to serve in this new capacity.
Jenna Covington: We provide essential water, wastewater, and solid waste disposal services to around 1.8 million people across 10 counties in northern Texas. Water service is how we started: We began providing wholesale water services to communities around 1956. As these communities have grown in population, so has the scope and complexity of the system we use to meet their needs. Today, we provide wholesale treated water to about 80 communities. To do that, we treat an average of 370 million gallons per day (MGD) of raw water supplies at 6 water treatment plants with a total capacity of over 876 MGD. That treated water is then transferred to 77 delivery points in over 600 miles of transmission pipeline. In response to requests from the cities that we serve, we began providing wastewater services in 1972. This allowed the consolidation of smaller municipal wastewater treatment plants into a regional system, reducing the costs to the cities and streamlining operations. Today, the effective treatment and purification of wastewater is a key way in which we’re helping to meet the future water needs of the region. We provide wastewater services through 13 wastewater treatment plants with a combined capacity of over 163 MGD. We also have 10 interceptor systems, totaling over 226 miles of large-diameter pipeline, that collect wastewater from the communities we serve and transfer it to those treatment plants. The concept of regionalization of services proved to be effective, and in 1979, at the request of our cities, we expanded into solid waste services. When we did that, we agreed that the cities would continue to collect the solid waste from their residents and would deliver it to one of our three transfer stations or to our landfill, which is located in Melissa, Texas. Our staff transports the waste from the transfer stations to our landfill. The landfill accepts, on average, over 1 million tons of solid waste per year.
