Sustainable infrastructure aims to meet current needs without compromising future generations by addressing funding gaps, implementing best practices, and innovating technologies. The EPA's four pillars approach includes full-cost pricing, better management practices like asset management and environmental management systems, watershed protection, and water efficiency to extend infrastructure lifespan and reduce costs. Key factors in effective management include strategic planning, answering five core questions about asset conditions and performance, and prioritizing critical assets.

1. Sustainable Infrastructure Overview
What is Sustainability?
What is Sustainable Infrastructure?
EPA’s “Four Pillars” Approach
EPA’ Pillars”
The Five Keys to Management Success
The Ten Attributes of Effectively Managed
Water Utilities
Sustainability: Sustainable Infrastructure:
What is it? What is it?
The ability to meet the needs of the present generation EPA 2007 Infrastructure Gap Analysis projects up to a
without compromising the ability of future generations to $334.8 Billion gap between infrastructure needs and
meet their needs. infrastructure funding by the year 2026 if funding
- UN World Commission on Environment and Development remains at current levels (water system infrastructure only)
Achieving a balance between human impacts and the The Sustainable Infrastructure Initiative seeks to
promote practices that will reduce this funding gap:
capacity of the natural world that can be sustained Addressing current needs in a timely manner
indefinitely, taking into account three interdependent Identifying and implementing Best Management Practices to
elements: address a variety of management challenges
Implementing appropriate funding and investing in infrastructure
The Environment Research & Development breakthroughs
The Economy Innovative technologies
The Social System
- BC Roundtable “Towards Sustainability: Learning for Change”
Change”
Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
How do we get it? Full-Cost Pricing
Full-
EPA’s “Four Pillars” Approach to
EPA’ Pillars” Burden of investing in Water System Infrastructure and
Sustainable Infrastructure O&M rests on the customer through:
Water Rates
Impact Fees
Connection Fees
Sustainable Infrastructure
Efficiency and Equity
Customers billed according to water used
Watershed Approach
Better Management
Allows funding of Capital Improvement/Repair and
Water Efficiency
Full-Cost Pricing
Replacement accounts
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2. Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable infrastructure:
Full-Cost Pricing
Full- Better Management
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program Focuses on implementing Best Management Practices
Provides cost-effective means to fund system
cost- Strategic Planning
improvements while encouraging full-cost pricing rate
full- Consolidation/Regionalization
structures
Asset Management
Allows systems the opportunity to avoid delaying needed The “Five Core Questions”
Questions”
infrastructure improvements:
Construction Cost Index and Building Cost Index increased by Environmental Management Systems
more than 23% from 2003 through 2008 Encourage organizations to improve compliance, pollution prevention, and
prevention,
Construction wages increased by ~23% from 2001 through 2008 environmental performance and to promote greater environmental
Delaying a project for 5 years can increase the total cost by as stewardship
much as 20% or more
Five Core Questions
1) What is the current state of my assets?
1) What do I own?
2) Where is it?
3) What condition is it in?
4) What is its remaining useful life?
5) What is its economic value?
2) What is my required sustained Level of Service?
1) What is the demand for my services from my customers?
2) What do regulators require?
3) What is my actual performance?
Five Core Questions Sustainable Infrastructure:
Water Efficiency
3) Which assets are critical to sustained performance? Reduces costs
1) How does it/can it fail? Running a faucet for 5 minutes uses about as much energy as
2) What is the likelihood of failure? running a 60-watt light bulb for 14 hours
60-
3) What does it cost to repair? 2008 EPA results show WaterSense fixtures saved:
9.38 billion gallons of water and 1 billion kWh of electricity
4) What are the consequences of failure?
Prolongs infrastructure life
4) What are my best minimum life-cycle cost CIP & O&M
life-
strategies?
1) What alternative management options are there?
Helps ensure continued availability of sufficient
quantities of safe drinking water
2) Which of these are most feasible for my system?
US population doubled from 1950 to 2000
US water consumption tripled, to an avg of 100 gpd/person
gpd/person
5) What is my best long-term funding strategy?
long-
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3. Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Watershed Approach Watershed Approach
Focus is on: Key decision makers take the opportunity to
consider watershed-based, cost-effective
Cleaner Water Sources alternatives in addition to traditional treatment
Reduced Treatment Costs
technology
Reduced Wear and Tear on Infrastructure
Look Beyond Traditional Geographic Boundaries Consider how water flows through the entire
Partnerships based on Watershed Boundaries watershed when making infrastructure and
Inter-Local
Inter-
Inter-State
Inter-
growth decisions
Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Remove any of the “Four Pillars”, and…
Pillars” and… The Five Keys
1. Leadership
2. Strategic Business Planning
3. Organizational Approaches
4. Measurement
5. Continual Improvement Management
Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Leadership Strategic Business Planning
Refers to: Aids the utility in achieving balance and cohesion
Individuals
Effective champions for improvement Provides a framework for decision making by:
Teams Assessing current conditions, strengths, and
Provide resilient day-to-day continuity & direction weaknesses
Ensures: Assessing underlying causes and effects
The utility’s direction is understood and followed Establishing vision, objectives, and strategies
Communication with customers and other stakeholders
Provides an Organizational Structure that:
Establishes specific implementation steps
Ensures the organization’s excellence
Reinforces a culture that embraces positive change and continual
improvement
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4. Sustainable Infrastructure:
Strategic Business Planning
Provides a long-term view of goals and operations
Drives and guides objectives, measurement
efforts, investments and operations
Explains goals, plans, and current conditions to
employees, customers and other stakeholders
Integrates progress tracking into the management
framework
Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Organizational Approaches Measurement
Contribute to overall effective utility management Critical to management improvement efforts
Necessary to management improvement efforts The backbone of successful continual improvement
Actively engaging employees in improvement efforts
management and strategic business planning
Implement processes that anticipate and plan for
change Serves many important purposes:
Encourages staff at all levels to embrace positive Focuses attention on key issues
change Clarifies expectations
Implementation strategies that recognize and Facilitates decision making
celebrate all victories Facilitates learning and improving
Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Measurement Continual Improvement
“You can’t improve Includes:
what you don’t measure.” Honest/Comprehensive self-assessment to identify
strengths, weaknesses, and priorities
Frequent sessions to identify improvement
Internal Performance Measurement
opportunities
Evaluates current performance status and trends Following up on current improvement projects
Compares outcomes relative to goals and objectives Implementing performance measures and internal
Benchmarking targets
Comparison of similar measures across institutions to: Implementing related operational requirements,
Identify Best Practices practices, and procedures
Set improvement targets
Measure progress within or across sectors
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5. Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Continual Improvement The Ten Attributes
Includes: 1. Product Quality 6. Infrastructure Stability
Establishing supporting roles and responsibilities 2. Customer Satisfaction 7. Operational Resiliency
Implementing measurement activities through regular 3. Employee and 8. Community
evaluations and audits Leadership Sustainability
Responding to evaluations, including implementing Development 9. Water Resource
recommendations PLAN 4. Operational Adequacy
Optimization 10. Stakeholder
5. Financial Viability Understanding and
ACT
DO
Support
CHECK
Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
The Ten Attributes The Ten Attributes
Provide useful and concise points for Utilities can use the Attributes to select
performance improvement priorities for improvement projects
Describe desired outcomes applicable to all No order, no hierarchy – work on the Attributes
water systems that best meet the utility’s needs
utility’
A comprehensive framework relating to Should be viewed as opportunities for
Operations Infrastructure improving management and operations
Customer Satisfaction Community Welfare
Resource Stewardship Financial Performance
Sustainable Infrastructure:
Product Quality
The utility produces potable water in full
compliance with regulatory requirements
and consistent with customer, public
health, and ecological needs.
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6. Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Customer Satisfaction Employee/Leadership Development
The utility recruits and retains a competent,
The utility provides reliable, responsive, and motivated, adaptive, safety-minded workforce.
safety-
affordable services according to customer
accepted service levels. The utility establishes a participatory, collaborative
organization dedicated to continual learning
The utility receives timely customer feedback to and improvement.
maintain responsiveness to customer needs
and emergencies. The utility ensures employee institutional
knowledge is retained and improved upon over
time.
Sustainable Infrastructure: Knowledge Management
Employee/Leadership Development
35% of workforce is within a few years of
retirement
The utility emphasizes opportunities for Explicit vs. Tacit (institutional) knowledge
professional and leadership development. Tacit knowledge tends to leave with the
employee
The utility strives to create an integrated, Often takes 5-10 years for an employee to
5-
well-coordinated senior leadership team.
well- become a Subject Matter Expert (SME)
Succession Planning is critical
Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Operational Optimization Financial Viability
The utility ensures performance improvements The utility understands the full life-cycle cost of
life-
that are ongoing, timely, cost-effective,
cost- delivering its product.
reliable, and sustainable.
The utility maintains a balance between long-
long-
The utility minimizes resource use, loss and term debt, asset value, O&M expenses, and
impacts due to day-to-day operations.
day- to- revenue.
The utility is aware of informational and The utility has established rates that cover the
technical developments and anticipates and actual cost of delivering the product.
supports timely adoption of improvements.
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7. Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Infrastructure Stability Operational Resiliency
The utility understands the condition and costs
of critical system infrastructure. The utility assures that management and staff
work together to anticipate and avoid
The utility maintains/enhances the long-term
long- problems.
condition of assets at the lowest possible life-
life-
cycle cost and acceptable risk. The utility proactively identifies, assesses, and
establishes tolerance levels for and manages
The utility assures that asset business risks.
replacement/repair efforts are coordinated to
minimize disruptions to the community.
Sustainable Infrastructure:
Community Sustainability
The utility is aware of and attentive to the
impacts its decisions have on current and long-
long-
term community and watershed health.
The utility manages operations, infrastructure,
and investments to protect, restore, and
enhance the natural environment.
The utility efficiently uses water and energy
resources.
Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure:
Community Sustainability Water Resource Adequacy
The utility promotes economic vitality and The utility employs resource supply and
engenders overall community improvement. demand analyses, conservation, and public
education to ensure current and long-term
long-
The utility considers a variety of pollution water availability.
prevention, watershed, and source protection
approaches as part of an overall strategy to The utility considers its role in water availability
maintain and enhance ecological and and manages operations to provide for long-long-
community sustainability. term aquifer/surface water sustainability and
replenishment.
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8. Sustainable Infrastructure: The “Current State” Nationally
Stakeholder Understanding/Support
Water/wastewater utilities are facing
The utility fosters understanding and support unprecedented challenges
from all stakeholders (citizens, regulators, etc.) -- aging infrastructure and workforce
for expected service levels, rate structures, -- continuing regulatory challenges
operating budgets, capital improvement -- unclear prospects for future federal funding
projects, and risk management decisions. -- increasing customer and community
demands for service
The utility actively involves stakeholders in the -- short-term perspective of elected officials
short-
decisions that will affect them. The list goes continues . . .
The “Current State” Nationally The “Current State” Nationally
More attention being paid to utility management The world is changing—traditional
changing—
but no common framework other than approaches focused solely on compliance
regulatory compliance are not enough
Utility managers faced with many choices which
often breeds confusion
Collaboration is the key—challenges are
key—
too large and stakes too high to operate
Question before EPA and industry: Is there a
way to pull it all together and move toward any differently
sustainable utility management? Sustainability is the ultimate goal!
EPA support and recognition can add a lot
What’s the Long-Term Vision? Recommendations
Engage and prepare staff for Cultural
Attributes, Keys to Management Success, and Change
Performance Measures accepted as the norm,norm, Involve all stakeholders early
not the exception Look for Quick Wins
Utilities, regulators, and others united around a System Size: Scale the program to fit your
common management framework for defining operation
excellence Improvement is a long and continuous
Utility excellence recognized and rewarded by process, get started and don’t feel
don’
communities, regulators, and others overwhelmed by the task
He who moves a mountain, begins by moving small
Water and wastewater operations and stones.
infrastructure are sustainable in the future Chinese Proverb
Strive for Best Practices
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9. ? ?? Questions ??
? Division of Drinking Water
?
Kenneth E. Wilde, P.E. - Manager
?
?
Construction Assistance Section
? kwilde@utah.gov
? ?
? ? (801)536-0048
(801)536-
Michael Grange, P.E. – Environmental
?
?
mgrange@utah.gov Engineer
? ? ? (801) 536-0069
536-
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