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How Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Is Revamping Its Wastewater Transport Infrastructure and because I was familiar with the city, I jumped at the opportunity. I was fortunate enough to be selected for the role. It’s been an easy transition for me because I already knew a lot of the staff here, and while I’m a civil engineer and am responsible for a wide range of topics, my expertise lies in the water and wastewater areas. Timothy Robins: My background is also in civil engineering. I got my bachelor’s at Missouri University of Science and Technology and recently obtained a master’s degree in engineering management from the University of Arkansas. My career is primarily based around construction and field services. My university studies focused on structural engineering, so I was a structural engineer designer for a while. I transitioned into field services while working with a company based in Missouri, where I did material testing and construction oversight for several years. That job involved running a team that covered the states of Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. About 5 years ago, I transitioned to Oklahoma and took the opportunity to serve as Broken Arrow’s construction manager, and I love it. Our division handles all public construction contracts and oversees and inspects all the privately funded public infrastructure that gets donated by subdivisions and business development sectors throughout the city.
Construction on Broken Arrow’s new sewer pipeline.
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he City of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, is a suburb of Tulsa with a population of about 115,000. Ethan Edwards, PE, is the city’s director of engineering and construction, and Timothy Robins, PE, is its construction division manager. The two civil engineers work together to carry out the city’s many capital and infrastructure projects. One major current project is the replacement of an aging and deteriorating sewer trunk line with large-diameter PVC pipe. In this interview, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Robins tell Municipal Water Leader about the challenges of installing a major new pipeline in challenging geological terrain.
Ethan Edwards: I’m a civil engineer by trade and have 20 years of experience in this field. I graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1999 and spent the bulk of my career in the consulting segment of the municipal water industry. The City of Broken Arrow was one of my clients, and I did a variety of projects for it over the course of about a dozen years. About a year ago, this position became open,
24 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2020
Ethan Edwards: The City of Broken Arrow covers over 60 square miles and has a population approaching 115,000 residents, which equates to 35,000– 38,000 customers or taps. On the water side, the city is served by one advanced water treatment plant, the Verdigris River Water Treatment Plant, which uses membrane technology. Our raw water comes from the Verdigris River. We have two wastewater treatment facilities. One, the Lynn Lane Wastewater Treatment Plant, is owned by the City of Broken Arrow. The other, the Haikey Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, is operated by the Regional Metropolitan Utility Authority, which encompasses several cities in the Tulsa metropolitan area, including Broken Arrow. In fact, Broken Arrow and Tulsa are the primary contributors of flow to that second facility. Timothy Robins: The Verdigris River Water Treatment Plant has the capacity to process around 27 million gallons of water per day (MGD), with a daily average of 14–16 MGD. That water is distributed through the city via an elevated storage tank distribution system. That’s how municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CITY OF BROKEN ARROW.
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions.
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about the City of Broken Arrow’s water, wastewater, and sewer services and infrastructure.
