Clark County Water Reclamation District (District) is responsible for wastewater collection, treatment and reclamation in unincorporated areas of Clark County, including the communities of Blue Diamond, Indian Springs, Laughlin, Searchlight and Moapa Valley. Established in 1954, the District operates the Las Vegas Valley and outlying service area facilities, which collect and treat approximately 100 million gallons of wastewater per day. The total system consists of more than 2,000 miles of pipeline ranging in diameter from 8 inches to 84 inches.
The District previously had challenges with rapid growth – both residential and commercial – along with aging infrastructure and the need to meet Federal and State water quality standards on a regular basis. In addition, the District had challenges with business processes, reporting and project monitoring.
As a result of these challenges, the District hired MWH in November 2005 to provide program management services on its capital improvement program. In addition, MWH focused on the business processes of the engineering and construction management departments to assess their business requirements.
The program management team is located on site in District offices, successfully working as an extension of District staff and fully integrated within the District’s organization. Service provided include program management; program controls; capital program management system; engineering project management; construction management; sewer modeling; design build procurement and pre-design; and supplemental services as authorized.
Identification and provision of the right combination of resources, systems, tools and procedures in collaboration with District management and staff has resulted in the development and successful implementation of the capital improvement program. Program management significantly contributed to increasing capital output to a record $770 million in the past five years with a present five year program budget total of $690 million.
Program management has resulted in:
- Achievement of primary objective to increase capital output
- More disciplined structured programmatic approach
- More comprehensive and improved capital improvement program budget document
- More efficient, timely and visible program and project reporting
- Improved business processes
- Reduced capital costs from comprehensive sewer modeling
- Successful completion of initial design build project
- Timely and accurate cost projections that supported the sewer rate model and approval of rate increases
- Increased capital output as a percentage of budget from less than 50% up to 85%
- Achieved record level of $220 million in capital output in two consecutive years
- Program management team in conjunction with District reduced capital budget by $350 million to better align with economic situation
- Comprehensive sewer modeling reduced capital costs by $80 million and deferred $300 million Enterprise system with a new $160 million sewer interceptor
- Program management
- Program controls (schedule, cost and reporting)
- Capital program management system
- Project management
- Construction management
- Supplemental services
The Capital Program Management System using mPRISM® has proven to be a valuable tool to monitor and report on the District’s project and program progress and status. It has been especially beneficial in providing timely identification of potential upcoming issues, cost impacts and negative variances to schedules.
– Clark County Water Reclamation District, Las Vegas, NV, September 2008