Alexandria Renew 2015 Report to Fairfax. A year of transformation

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1 Alexandria Renew 2015 Report to Fairfax A year of transformation

2 Contents Alexandria Renew and Fairfax County Treating Fairfax County s Water Fairfax Partnership Investing in Water Transformation Our Approach 2015 Investments

3 Alexandria Renew and Fairfax County At Alexandria Renew, we re hard at work for the people of our city and a large portion of Fairfax County as well. Our job involves serving both communities in a way that transforms water to improve the lives of all. Our facility has worked with Fairfax County as a wholesale customer since Due to the topography of the land in this region, our facility sits at a low drainage point, so building a wastewater treatment facility to serve both communities made good engineering and practical sense. Today, we transform the water of nearly 68,000 households in Fairfax County, and we are constantly monitoring and improving the water treatment system in this part of our service area. As we continue to innovate, our water resource recovery process leads to an even cleaner Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River. We are grateful to Fairfax County for trusting us with your water transformation needs, for supporting us when we make decisions that are in the best interest of all customers in our watershed, and for your investment and partnership in transforming our water to transform our world. We look forward to creating the future together. 1

4 Treating Fairfax County s Water 2015 Total Production Total wastewater treated at AlexRenew 12 billion gallons More than 6 billion gallons Total wastewater from Fairfax treated at AlexRenew Alexandria Renew Enterprises Service Area 2

5 Alexandria Renew and Fairfax. A partnership for transforming the world. At Alexandria Renew, forward thinking means new solutions for transforming water in Alexandria and portions of Fairfax and 2015 was a banner year for our progress. In March of 2015, with the support of Fairfax County, we opened our new Centrate Pretreatment Facility (CPT): the first designed and separately constructed full-scale sidestream deammonification system in North America. Huge centrifuges, machines with rapidly rotating containers, apply a spinning force to their contents to extract ammonia-rich wastewater from solids. Wastewater from the centrifuges moves to the CPT: Inside of the CPT, Anammox bacteria work in tandem with other types of microorganisms to transform the ammonia in dirty water into nitrogen gas. This gas can be safely released back into the atmosphere. The revolutionary Anammox process uses less air, energy, and chemicals than traditional treatment processes and offers opportunities for operation and maintenance cost savings. They shower... We clean...he swims. Each day, our more than 300,000 customers use about 35 million gallons of water, which goes down the drain and heads to us. We transform that wastewater into a sparkling clean resource, right here in one of the world s most advanced water resource recovery facilities. So we can safely add that water into the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac and it s even cleaner than the water that s already in there! Alexandria s Water Transformers 3

6 Investing in water transformation and the future of our planet. Fairfax County invests in Alexandria Renew and its operations and technology. We maximize every dollar of your investment in our water resource recovery facility. Operations & Maintenance Your investment helps ensure that the water Fairfax sends us is cleaned to the highest standards every day and that the equipment we use to clean your water and Alexandria s water is always working. Improvement, Renewal & Replacement (IR&R) Fairfax s support helps provide funding for capital improvements, renewals, and replacements for infrastructure used jointly by Alexandria and Fairfax. These efforts have included planned overhauls and maintenance of critical equipment, energy efficiency and alternative energy generation projects, information technology projects, and required asset replacements. 4

7 Capital Improvement Projects A number of vital projects are helping transform the way we manage and treat Fairfax County s wastewater. Among our recent efforts: A New Wet Weather Management Strategy: Alexandria Renew receives wastewater from Fairfax and Alexandria sanitary sewer systems. As the pipes age, they are more susceptible to infiltration and inflow, which happens when rain and groundwater enter the pipes through cracks, leaky pipe joints, and manholes. AlexRenew was not sized to process this extra water. The City of Alexandria and Fairfax County are working with AlexRenew to reduce infiltration and inflow because it can lead to sanitary sewer overflows. Projects to minimize overflows are in the concept phase and include large projects at AlexRenew as well as work by both the city and county on the collection systems. 5

8 State-of-the-Art Nitrogen Upgrade Program (SANUP): The Chesapeake Bay has been in decline for decades in part due to an excess of nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus, which can cause algal blooms that lead to low oxygen levels in the water. This harms bay wildlife and disrupts fishing and recreational use of the bay. Alexandria Renew s solution to reducing the amount of total nitrogen in the water it returns to the Chesapeake Bay is the State-of-the-Art Nitrogen Upgrade Program (SANUP). As part of SANUP, Alexandria Renew has added a sixth biological reactor basin (BRB 6). In the biological reactor basins, Alexandria Renew puts microbes to work cleaning dirty water. In order to remove more nitrogen, Alexandria Renew needed to employ even more microbes, including the Anammox bacteria at work in the Centrate Pretreatment Facility. BRB 6 makes space for more microbes with 3.8 million gallons of additional secondary treatment capacity. Another component of SANUP is Alexandria Renew s one-of-a-kind nutrient management facility (NMF). The NMF will provide 18 million gallons of storage for primary effluent, helping to balance the amount of ammonia-nitrogen that goes into the biological reactor basins. Constructed for an urban landscape, the new facility features a multipurpose lit turf field on top. The field was funded solely through a real estate transaction and did not impact Fairfax in any way. 6

9 Both BRB 6 and the NMF help Alexandria Renew reduce total nitrogen and prepare for new development and future population growth in Northern Virginia. Ultraviolet Disinfection System Upgrade: Alexandria Renew was one of the first water resource recovery facilities in the United States to use UV disinfection. This is a chemical-free way to ensure that the water we send back to the Chesapeake Bay is free of pathogens. Fairfax County has invested in this asset from the very beginning, and your continued support will allow for more upgrades as our UV system nears the end of its useful life. A more energy efficient system is being designed that can be used in the existing channels. We will replace one channel at a time to maintain adequate treatment during the upgrades. This project will commence this fiscal year and will contribute to our energy efficiency and sustainability goals. 7

10 Transforming water to transform lives in Fairfax. At Alexandria Renew, we re about so much more than treating water. We re about transforming it, which, in turn, uplifts our greater community and our planet as a whole. We ve proven this in the past year, as we ve taken giant steps to deliver on our promise to transform our water and our world. Our approach has focused on four roles: Good neighbor, as we put resources to work to help our community and environment thrive. Problem solver, as we work together to help reduce our impact, lower risk and decrease costs. Innovator, as we implement fresh approaches and new technology to the industry. Transformer, as we know our jobs can make our world a better place. From new facilities to new technologies, from enhanced partnerships to expanded programs, Alexandria Renew is changing rapidly. Because we know that every drop of water is precious. And that a world with cleaner water starts right here in Northern Virginia. 8

11 Fairfax s 2015 Investments $2,348,904 Joint Improvement, Renewal & Replacement Overhauling and maintaining critical equipment, such as pumps, pipes, and grinders. $10,275,587 Joint Operations & Maintenance Ensuring every drop of dirty water gets cleaned 24 hours a day, seven days a week. $34,400,616 Joint Capital Improvements Constructing facilities that support major programs and sustainable infrastructure. 9

12 1500 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, VA alexrenew.com Alexandria Renew Alexandria Renew Enterprises