Managing Challenges Building the Aurora Prairie Waters Project

Twenty-first Century pipeline projects are faced with challenging constraints, increased regulatory requirements, escalating costs, greater demand for service, and a high expectation for the newest improvements. The City of Aurora, CO retained third-party construction management services to represent their interest during the construction for the Prairie Waters Project (PWP). This project includes a north campus with an alluvial well field, an aquifer recharge and recovery basin. It also included a conveyance system of over 37 miles of 60" diameter steel pipe, twenty- one trenchless crossing, three 50 MGD raw water pump stations and a water purification facility. The project had major environmental constraints and mitigation. It was designed and constructed in a manner to prevent a federal permitting process. As the City's 3^rd party construction manager for the north plant and conveyance part of these elements, the author provides insight to the following project specific challenges during construction: (1) Stringent environmental controls for a project which avoided the EIS process (2) Owner Controlled Insurance Program (OCIP) (3) Hand held GPS survey measurements for each joint and appurtenance (4) Paperless Document Control Administration via the City's SharePoint "Prairie Net" (5) Multijurisdictional installations (6) Coordination with the City's Program Manager, Public Involvement Program, Environmental Consultant, Land Acquisition Agent and Permitting Consultants (7) Contract Administration on concurrent construction contracts The PWP is a critical part of Aurora's plan to improve the level of service of its water supply system under drier conditions, to meet growing demands, and provide additional supply reliability by accessing a new water source that is less weather-sensitive than the traditional mountain and trans-basin sources which are being used for current supplies. This paper discusses how using third-party construction management (CM) effectively controls costs for owners throughout the project life cycle. The author begins by defining third-party construction management and describing instances when an owner should consider this delivery management system. The paper describes completion of work despite the challenges listed above from the role of third-party construction management during the construction stage of the project life cycle. The value delivered to owners from employing this delivery management approach is shared from the author's first-hand experience with pipeline inspection during construction.