From Conceptual Framework to Practical Implementation: City of Sugar Land’s Wastewater Treatment Facilities

Municipalities are increasingly challenged by customers and key stakeholders to demonstrate cost effectiveness in their decision-making processes. This reality is no different for the City of Sugar Land (Sugar Land), who owns four wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and a water reuse plant that collect wastewater from throughout the city for treatment. Each facility requires annual rehabilitation to tend to aging infrastructure, keep up with regulatory changes, and meet capacity needs.

Sugar Land is in the final stages for developing an asset management plan for the WWTPs and water reuse plant to identify the near- and long-term capital investment funding needed so that these facilities continue to provide the services expected by Sugar Land’s customers long into the future. In accordance with Sugar Land’s city-wide Asset Management Policy and commitment to developing and implementing its asset management program, this plan helps Sugar Land make strategic and tactical decisions related to operating its facilities and, most crucially, achieving desired levels of service (LOS) at the lowest life-cycle cost.