Laie, Hawaii is located on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii and is home to more than 6,000 people. Hawaii Reserves, Inc., (HRI) an affiliate of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, originally developed the area and was responsible for the public utilities. The area’s more than 700 homes were on failing septic systems that were posing an environmental threat to the areas beaches. HRI had begun a program to rid the area of septic systems and had constructed a regional wastewater treatment plant. Unfortunately the original plans drawn up to construct sewer service to each home in the Laie service area exceeded the program budget by several million dollars.

On behalf of HRI, Universal Asset Management developed the design of an alternative low pressure sewer system saving HRI millions of dollars in up front construction costs and designed and has managed a comprehensive long term asset management program for the operation of the system since its construction in 2004.

The first phase of the project deployed 630 grinder pump systems with operational alarms throughout Laie, interconnected by approximately 28,000 feet of small diameter pipeline and associated valves and cleanouts. The ageing septic systems were decommissioned ending the environmental threat to near by beaches.

Each homeowner has been provided a 1-800 number, manned 24 hours per day by UAM staff, to call in the event of a pump station alarm at their home or any other problem that develops in the system. Our technicians initially work to resolve the problem with simple instructions and questions of the homeowner over the phone. If it is determined a service call is necessary, a service technician is dispatched by UAM from the Honolulu public works department to attend to the problem in the field 24/7. If a pump problem cannot be resolved in the field, the pump core is removed and replaced with a spare core and the original pump is taken to the shop for refurbishment and recycled into the system. The pump performance and service call records are all maintained in UAM’s customer service database for underwriting, reporting and quality control purposes.

In testimony to the success of the project, HRI recently authorized a $7 million dollar expansion of the low-pressure system to include 160 more properties to be serviced by the system and maintained by UAM.

Far West Water & Sewer, Inc. provides drinking water and wastewater service in a 24 square mile service area that covers the Foothills region in unincorporated Yuma County, Arizona.  The utilities management recognized that continued rapid growth in the utility’s service area along with ever tightening environmental regulations were mounting challenges for this privately owned yet publicly regulated water and sewer utility.

The utility’s 18,000 household user base has been growing at the rate of over 1,000 new connections per year and is showing no sign of slowing down.  The increased wastewater flows and demand for water service from this growth caused the utility to question the long term ability of their existing seven wastewater plants and drinking water treatment facility to keep up with the rising demand for service.   

The situation caused Far West’s ownership to determine that a comprehensive review of the asset and its general operating practices was needed. UAM was contracted to do a comprehensive review of the physical assets of the utility and develop a detailed, fast tracked capital improvements plan focused on long term maintenance management, operational flexibility, and cost effectiveness for the utility. 

Australia’s Macquarie Bank Group, is one of the world’s largest owners of public and private  infrastructure with assets located across Australia, Europe, Asia and North America.  Macquarie has a market capitalization of about $41 billion and in 2005 reported $89 million in funds under management.  In 2003, Macquarie joined with UAM to form Coriolis, Australia, a supplier of new low-pressure sewer technology and asset management systems in Australia and New Zealand.   

At the time, many of the region’s wastewater utilities, including the Sydney Water Corporation, the 4th largest water utility in the world, were faced with thousands of failing septic systems in developed neighborhoods.  A study in the Sydney area alone found over 10,000 such systems posing a real threat to the surrounding environment and residents.  

With the cost of providing traditional gravity sewer systems in fully developed areas with challenging topography well beyond the financial reach of most residents, Macquarie began investigating the possibility of utilizing low-pressure sewer technology as a means to address the issue at greatly reduced costs.

The systems utilize small diameter pipes laid at shallow depths with a wet well and a 2 HP semi-positive displacement grinder pump unit installed in the lot of each home.  They found that while the technology was potentially very cost effective, it had never been deployed on any large scale in the Pacific Rim countries and was completely foreign to the region’s engineering and utility management community.  The prospect of absorbing the maintenance responsibility for thousands of grinder pump units was seen as a barrier to entry into this marketplace by Macquarie Bank.

To alleviate this project risk, UAM was engaged to develop a comprehensive asset management plan for the low pressure sewer system technology including funding requirements, preliminary and final design activities, construction methodology and a post construction long term asset management approach for the entire system.

Working closely with the Macquarie, the major wastewater utilities in the region, and the local engineering and construction community, UAM developed a Reliability Centered Maintenance program that started with the funding approach for each system by including funds for carefully directed future maintenance activities. Embedding the requirements for the long term maintenance of the systems into every aspect of the project delivery system, from funding, design and construction activities, the initial objection to the technology because of long term maintenance concerns was successfully overcome.