AWWA ACE65452

AWWA ACE65452 Managing a Large Alternative Procurement: Optimizing Treatment Plant Delivery in the 21st Century
Conference Proceeding by American Water Works Association, 06/01/2007

Suydam, Tim; Economides, John; Gilbert, Jerome B.

More info

Full Description

The San Diego County Water Authority (Water Authority) is constructing a 100 million gallonper day (MGD) water treatment plant using state-of-the-art technology. Project delivery isthrough the design-build-operate (DBO) method. It has proved ideal for the Water Authority andrepresents an integrated optimization of environmental, efficiency, cost, scheduling, andsustainability considerations. In some respects the Water Authority has unique circumstances thatare described in this paper. However, the Water Authority's experience has demonstrated thatthere are many benefits to using this nontraditional delivery method. The urgency of the need combined with the Water Authority's lack of treatment plant design andoperation expertise, resulted in this public-private partnership to implement the Twin Oaks ValleyWater Treatment Plant project. Construction of the plant will be funded using long-term WaterAuthority debt. Qualifications of contractors for this effort were solicited in the summer of 2004,and three DBO teams were short listed in October 2004. Requests for Proposals were issued tothe three teams in December 2004 with proposals due in May 2005. The Water Authorityevaluated each proposal based on specific non-price criteria, then negotiated with each team. Bestand final offers were requested in August 2005 and evaluated based on price and non-pricecriteria. The DBO contract was awarded in September 2005 and executed in October 2005 with arequirement that the plant be operational by April 2008.The Water Authority retained consultants to assist in evaluating proposals and managing thiseffort including: an Owner's Representative (OR), legal counsel to assist in the development andnegotiation of the DBO Service Contract; and, a Board of Senior Consultants (BOSC) consistingof experts with specialties in several technical and economic aspects of DBO contracting. Afterthe execution of the DBO contract, suggestions for process improvement were solicited from thethree proposers and from other project team members. This paper describes the solicitationprocess, and provides suggested improvements as a result of this collaborative review. Includes table, figures.