LGAA PRESENTATION: INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT PLANS

Dieter G. Foessel, M.Sc., R.E.T.
Contact: foesseld@ae.ca

1 General

1.1 Introduction

• Introductions: D. Foessel – Project Manager, Infrastructure Group (Calgary)
• Thank the LGAA and Norm McInnis for inviting us to speak to the LGAA delegates.

1.2 Focus of Presentation

• The presentation will focus on why a municipality should (and needs to) commission an Infrastructure Master Plan (IMP)
• The benefits and uses of an IMP as a long-term planning tool
• IMP preparation costs
• Consultant selection for IMPs.

2 Infrastructure Master Plan (IMP)

2.1 What is an IMP?

An IMP is an investigation and analysis of a municipality’s infrastructure systems over a 20 to 25 year design horizon and may consist of:

• A global investigation of all of the municipality’s infrastructure systems (i.e. water system, wastewater system, stormwater system, transportation infrastructure, and capital assets such as buildings)
• An investigation of an individual infrastructure system (i.e. only the wastewater system)
• An investigation of a component of an individual infrastructure system (water or wastewater treatment plant, storm water retention pond, or a collector road).
• What an IMP provides:
• An assessment of the current physical condition of a system and its ability to provide the intended service and level of performance over the next 20 to 25 years
• An analysis of the system’s ability to met current and long-term performance requirements in response to anticipated development(s)
• An analysis of the system’s ability to meet current regulatory requirements
• Determines when systems upgrades are required and the magnitude of the upgrades
• Identifies and prioritizes the capital works upgrading projects into short term (0 – 2 years), medium term (2 to 4/5 years) and long-term (5+ years) based on a risk analysis for each upgrade project identified (Tables 6, 7 & 8)
• Provides a capital works cost estimate for each project (Tables 6, 7 & 8)
• Provides the base information necessary for the preparation of a long term planning document and capital works plan(s).

In brief, the IMP provides answers to five (5) basic questions from an Administrator’s perspective:

1. What’s my problem?
2. How do I fix it?
3. What do I need to do to fix it?
4. When do I need to do it?
5. What’s it going to cost?

Once the Administrator has the answers to these questions, the planning component can be added and the sixth question may be added:

6. How do I finance it?

The following tables and figures are a graphic example of how the IMP information may be used to create a basic planning document and to develop capital plans for infrastructure upgrading projects.

Infrastructure systems are major capital assets that need to be managed, maintained and periodically upgraded if they are to provide the level of service and performance for which they are intended. In order to do that, an Administrator needs the information that an IMP provides so that he can plan and manage the infrastructure system(s) in an orderly, phased manner. Once an Administrator has the IMP information, he/she has the necessary information for a planning document from which short and long-term capital plans may be developed.

3 Need For An Infrastructure Master Plan (IMP)

There a primarily three (3) reasons to commission an IMP:

.1 To provide the Administrator with a planning document from which short and long term capital plans may be developed.

.2 To qualify for grant funding for capital projects under available financial assistance programs such as the Alberta Municipal Infrastructure Program (AMIP):

• Under Section 5 of the AMIP program, “The Municipality will need to substantiate through a Multi-Year Capital Infrastructure Plan that it can utilize the funds within the program time period. This plan will facilitate the accumulation of grant funds by the municipality in order to accommodate larger projects requiring more than one year’s grant allocation.”
• Infromation regarding financial assistance programs may be found on the following websites:
• www.trans.gov.ab.ca/MunicipalPgms/Grant.asp.
• www.municipalaffairs.gov.ab.ca/ms_815.htm.

To comply with current AENV regulatory requirements for municipal water systems.

• The new AENV “Standards and Guidelines for Municipal Waterworks, Wastewater and Storm Drainage Systems”, January 2006, contain significant changes to the Waterworks standards and guidelines. Section 1- Waterworks System Standards outlines the critical design and/or performance standards of a municipal potable water system. “These are mandatory requirements with which owners are required to comply.”
• There are no grandfathering provisions for recently-upgraded water systems. (The wastewater and storm drainage standards and guidelines are unchanged from the 1997 edition).
• The Foreword section of the AENV standards and guidelines states that, “It is recognized that not all existing waterworks will meet the standards published in this document. As the new standards will have a direct impact on the safety of drinking water, Alberta Environment expects the upgrading to be done in a reasonable period. It is proposed that all waterworks systems that hold an approval or registration be upgraded to meet these new standards before 1 April, 2012. The system owners/utilities are also expected to develop and submit to the Regional Director a five-year capital plan before April 1, 2007 to upgrade the system. The capital plan may be developed with Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation if eligible for funding under the Municipal Water/Wastewater Partnership program.”

4 IMP Preparation Cost

• The preparation cost for a complete IMP (a global IMP/or all infrastructure systems) for a town of 2,000 to 3,000 people is estimated to be approximately $110,000 to $115,000. The cost is reduced if only individual infrastructure systems or components of systems are investigated.
• This amount appears to be a considerable amount of money until the cost is put into perspective with respect to the value of the capital cost of the upgrading projects identified, and the grant funding available through existing financial assistance programs.
• In 2004, AE prepared a global IMP for a town of 1,700 for a total cost of $95,000. 44 capital works projects were identified estimated at a cost of $8.4M. As a percentage of the total estimated capital project cost, the cost of the IMP was only about 1.1%. With available grant funding applied (say 50%), the expected cost of the preparation of a global IMP may be less than 0.5% of the total estimated capital works costs. $50,000 is a reasonable cost for a document that provides a municipality with all the information required to plan and manage the municipality’s infrastructure systems over the next 20 to 25 years.
• IMPs are ‘living documents’. As such, they need to be updated at least every 5 years in a stable economy or situation. As economic conditions and regulatory requirements change or unforeseen events occur, the IMP or portions thereof may need to be reviewed and revised accordingly. The revision may be easily and quickly made at a reasonable cost since all the bulk groundwork has already been done and the model(s) can be readily rerun to generate updated outputs. The initial IMP preparation costs are a one-time expenditure with periodic minimal costs to update the IMP over the next 20 to 25 years.

5 Consultant Selection

• The vast majority of municipalities are serviced by an incumbent engineering consultant to some degree. However, not all consultants offer IMP preparation as part of their services; nor are all consultants capable of executing an IMP for even the smaller municipalities.
• IMPs may be multi-disciplined documents (i.e. water/wastewater treatment, roads, asset management, etc.) that require a high level of engineering expertise and experience to execute properly. The same level of expertise is required to evaluate and analyze any water or wastewater treatment system or a transportation network as it takes to design such systems. The Administrator must select a consultant whose expertise and resources are commensurate with the degree of complexity of the assignment.
• The proper execution of an IMP not only involves technical expertise, but also sound project management and cost estimating skills.
• The Consulting Engineers of Alberta (CEA) can provide a skills matrix outlining the services provided by the various consulting firms registered in Alberta. As the complexity of the assignments increases, the number of capable consultants becomes limited. As the level of complexity and magnitude of the scope of work decreases, more consulting firms may prove to be suitable for the simpler IMPs.
• There is no need for a municipality to change from their incumbent consultant to another consultant to commission an IMP. Simply determine the scope of work of the IMP and select a firm best suited to perform the work.