Newark Ten-Year Strategic Business & Capital Improvement Plan

Providing services to a population of approximately 280,000, Newark's water and wastewater systems average daily water demands of approximately 77 million gallons per day, while its waste water facilities are used to convey sewerage to the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC) for treatment and disposal. There are over 600 miles of potable water transmission and distribution infrastructure, and the wastewater system includes a complex network of separate sanitary, combined sewer, and stormwater infrastructure. These aging assets have been experiencing more annual operating expenses related to reactive system repair. As a result, the City of Newark retained Hatch Mott MacDonald to perform a holistic assessment of the Department of Water and Sewer Utilities and develop a Strategic Business Plan to identify the requirements for a sustainable business, a Sewer System Master Plan, an Asset Management Plan, and to also identify the ten-year Capital Improvement Program. .

Water System Master Plan Update
In 2002 HMM developed a comprehensive master plan of the water system which evaluated the source, production and treatment, transmission, distribution, and storage facilities. In 2010, this master plan was updated with a focus on identifying investment needs by asset class and primary need class. The overall ten-year CIP includes investments of over $250 million.

Sewer System Master Plan
The sewer system master plan identified that a Sewer Assessment and Renewal Program is imperative for sustaining future service in the system. The renewal program will prioritize locations for sewer inspection, condition assessment, with identification of rehabilitation and/or replacement needs. In the long-term this program is anticipated to reduce the amount of emergency repair in the system which is currently being performed at a very high unit cost. The City is also faced with potential major investments related to a Long Term Control Plan (LTCP) for Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO). The report identified potential impacts and investment needs for long term CSO controls, although the NJDEP and USEPA have not promulgated any specific treatment requirements to date. The overall ten-year CIP for sewer includes investments of over $260 million not including LTCP long-term requirements.

Asset Management Plan
An Asset Management Plan addresses the significant future investments related to renewal and replacement in the water and sewer systems. The Plan provides steps for investments in integrated information systems, and improved business processes for the collection of inspection and condition assessment information, and also identifies cost-effective ways of extending the life of assets at the lowest life-cycle costs.

Strategic Business Plan
The purpose for the development of the Strategic Business Plan was to identify the components of the overall utility management which are the highest priority for improvement. Using an outline for a self-assessment provided by the Effective Utility Management Collaborative Effort (a collaborative effort between seven national water and wastewater organizations and backed by the USEPA - WaterEUM.org), the City is working toward identifying future goals, strategies, and objectives to work towards being a high performance utility.

As part of the master planning effort, HMM undertook an analysis to identify potential revenue generation and cost avoidance. One of the cost avoidance projects identified was to reconfigure a pressure zone with some minor piping modifications to reduce overall annual pumping costs by approximately $480,000. This specialized hydraulic modeling analysis was featured in Bentley’s 2010 Year In Infrastructure.