A myriad of obstacles can crop up every day when running a large-scale water department in an arid region of the country. Tom Gallier, who is the Water Utilities Department Manager for the city of Tempe, Ariz., faces challenges new and old yet manages to provide high quality water to nearly 200,000 people.
WWD recently spoke with Gallier who provided valuable insight into the Tempe Water Utilities Department (TWUD).
WWD: If you could, please tell the WWD readers about the TWUD?
Tom Gallier: The TWUD provides potable water, wastewater, reclaimed water, stormwater, and general environmental protection services to the city of Tempe, Ariz., and an adjacent small community, the town of Guadalupe.
We serve about 170,000 people, in a total service area of about 42 sq. miles. Tempe is the only “landlocked” community in the Phoenix metropolitan area, and has the highest population density in the state of Arizona. The utility has 130 employees, and generates about $45 million per year in revenues from about 42,000 residential, commercial and industrial accounts.
WWD: What are some of the challenges that you face on a regular basis and how are they resolved?
Gallier: On the potable water side, probably our biggest challenge is the widely variable source water quality we treat in our two surface water treatment plants (50 mgd each). At any time, delivery canals from the Salt River Project may carry water from the Salt River, the Verde River, the Colorado River, or groundwater from over 200 SRP operated wells within the project boundaries, and adjacent to the SRP canals.
WWD: How does the TWUD ensure safe and clean drinking water to its customers?
Gallier: Like other Phoenix area utilities, we constantly monitor our upstream and incoming water quality, so as to maintain continuous delivery of safe drinking water to the community. We currently use conventional treatment systems, but are in the process of installing onsite sodium hypochlorite generators to replace high-pressure ton chlorine cylinders, UV disinfection, and additional finished water storage.
We are also evaluating microfiltration membrane technology as an alternative/ enhancement to our conventional treatment processes, and are currently expanding and retrofitting our water reclamation plant with membrane bioreactors.
WWD: What are your concerns regarding arsenic and how do you go about resolving arsenic-related problems?
Gallier: Unlike many other Arizona utilities, Tempe has been fortunate to meet the new 10 ppb arsenic standard without any additional treatment. If it drops to 5 ppb or lower, we’ll have to invest in expensive arsenic control technology like our neighbors, Scottsdale and Mesa.
WWD: Being in the desert, what type of drought plan does the TWUD
have available?
Gallier: We operate under a multi-tiered drought response plan, combined with an on-going campaign that encourages water conservation. When drought conditions begin, we increase our public outreach, and encourage additional voluntary conservation measures.
If conditions warrant reduced deliveries from our raw water supplier, Salt River Project, then mandatory conservation measures may be instituted. Our current, decade-long drought, is only now coming to an end.
While conditions will only be slightly improved on the Colorado River basin this year, we will end the spring runoff season at 100% of system capacity in our Salt/Verde water storage reservoirs. It appears that long-range climate change may result in extended below normal years, punctuated by extremely high runoff years. Large-scale main-stem reservoirs are even more critical in our future, if extreme annual runoff variability continues
as the norm.
WWD: Do you find your equipment purchases to mirror those that you have made in the past?
Gallier: It depends. If the equipment remains essentially state-of-the-art, and if there are multiple units with extensive spare parts to be inventoried, then my bias is to stick with the same unit—assuming it doesn’t violate purchasing rules. If its no longer state-of-the-art, then we take a harder look at it before making any final decisions.
WWD: What plays a bigger role in your equipment-related decisions, cost or brand name reputation, and why?
Gallier:Being a publicly owned utility, cost is heavily weighted in the purchasing decision, but other factors also come into play, depending on the situation. Obviously, we want the best overall value for our purchase, and as we all know, sometimes that’s not the cheapest price.
WWD: From your perspective, what do you do to improve the water and wastewater industry?
Gallier: As the leader of my organization,
I feel that my biggest jobs are to remove obstacles so my staff can get the job done, and to hire and help develop the strongest team of water professionals I can.
Last January, I had the rare opportunity to work with my staff during a very long night to solve the treatment challenge presented by extremely turbid incoming raw water. It was very gratifying to watch this team of professionals...operators, engineers, mechanics,
electricians, chemists, I&C techs...all working cooperatively and calmly together until they solved the problem and brought our plant back online just in the nick of time.
It’s not often that a manager can watch his team work so closely and so well together in such a high-tension atmosphere. It’s the ultimate payoff to years of effort in building a team that can consistently deliver high quality water and wastewater services to the communities we serve, and it was one of my proudest moments.
