The Few, the Proud: The Challenge to Upgrade Infrastructure on Active Military Installations and How One Utility Overcame

Replace, rehabilitate, or simply eliminate? Utilities often struggle to determine the best approach to upgrade existing infrastructure. The approach becomes more complex when the existing infrastructure is located on fully operating Military installations adjacent to wetlands and water bodies. This paper provides an overview of the approach used to improve wastewater assets acquired by the Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority (BJWSA) on two local Military installations. Additionally, the paper will provide an overview of why and how the BJWSA acquired aging infrastructure on the Military bases, and the effects the Military's constraints had on selecting the "best" approaches. As part of a federal utility privatization initiative, the BJWSA competed for and acquired water and wastewater systems located on four Military installations. Consequently, the BJWSA completed an Initial System Modification (ISM) assessment defining projects to be funded by the Utility Privatization (UP) Contract so that the assets are brought up to an acceptable condition. Since being awarded the UP Contract, the BJWSA has implemented a design and construction program for a number of ISM projects that includes strict adherence to each Military installation's security, safety, environmental, and cultural resources protection requirements. Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. performed pipe rehabilitation services about of 40,000 linear feet (LF) of sewer at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot at Parris Island (MCRD-PI) and 3,000 LF of sewer at the Naval Hospital. Services included sewer cleaning, smoke testing, CCTV inspection and defect identification, manhole inspection and evaluation. A computerized assessment program was implemented to help manage the data. The sewers at the Naval Hospital have been re-lined using cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) and the sewers at MCRD-PI are slated to be rehabilitated using multiple methods, including CIPP and pipe bursting, beginning in spring, 2011. However, the sewer rehabilitation project represents just one part of an overall ISM program that is anticipated to cost about $14 million and be completed by late 2011. A key point of this paper is that the BJWSA's acquisition of the MCRD-PI Military installation not only improved aging wastewater assets on the bases, but did so without disruption to the day-to-day operations