1. Water Conservation and Efficiency Projects for SWIFT Funding:
Fort Worth’s Application Process and Lessons Learned
SWIFT Funding Workshop
June 23, 2016

2. Background
City of Fort Worth consists of approximately 350 square miles
Population of 792,727
Fort Worth Water Department provides both retail & wholesale water (31) & wastewater (23) services
Total population served (water)
Water: 1,169,061
Wastewater: 1,104,433

4. Current Efficiency Initiatives
Residential programs
SmartFlush toilet retrofit
CARE (Conservation Assistance and Retrofit Efficiency) program for elderly and low income
ICI programs
SmartWater Audit
Outdoor programs
Smart Irrigation Audits (residential customers)

5. Current Efficiency Initiatives
Ordinances
Waste of water
No more than twice per week watering schedule
Public Education
Texas SmartScape e-magazine
Chasing Leaks 5k race
Public events
School programs
Drought Planning

6. Water Use Is Trending Downward
Here you see our trends for Gallons Per Capita Per day usage. The blue bars represent the total by year. That number will vary with the weather so we’ve track a rolling 5 year average. That is reflected in the red line.
You can see a steady reduction over time as customers become more aware of the importance of conservation and replace aging fixtures.
It is important to note the differences in the two most prominent drought years; 2006 and Although 2011 was the driest single year on record, GPCD was still well below the 2006 level.
Est gpcd is 152

7. Water Loss Current water loss: 17% Total non-revenue water: 24%
Increasing/Fluctuating

8. Conservation Project for SWIFT
Implementation of a fixed based Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system to significantly reduce water loss
Replacement of older, inaccurate water meters
Retrofit remaining water meters
Right sizing/typing of large water meters
Automatic leak detection system
Meter Data Management system
District area metering
Fort Worth estimates that approximately 7,000 acre feet/year will be saved thru this project.

9. Why SWIFT? Better rate on loans
AAA rated debt vs. our AA
Additional subsidy
Flexibility – ability to split project up in multiple debt issues
Large percentage of money set aside for conservation/efficiency projects
Additional subsidy is 35%. This equates to a savings of several million dollars. Total was 1.64% vs about 3% for our rates on 15 year debt.

10. Cost Benefit
Expected revenue increase with AMI, related to conservation/efficiency
Significantly reduce apparent water loss (paper losses from meter reading errors and mistakes with data, theft)
Increases in additional wastewater billing
Reducing real water loss (reducing treatment of real water loss, identifying leaks and breaks more quickly, better understanding of our water balance)
Non-revenue related…better data = better decision making
Rapid reduction of apparent water loss expedites revenue recovery and provides a positive rate impact by 2020.
5 year cumulative revenue increase of $23 million

11. Cost Benefit
Expected revenue increase with AMI, related to operational efficiencies
Reduce customer calls
Elimination of 3rd party meter reading agreement
Reduction in truck roll outs
Re-reads/rechecks
Fleet costs
Meter lock outs
Initial and final readings

12. Timeline Council project concept approval
Project must be in 2012 State Water Plan to be eligible for SWIFT
Requested Region C letter of support for project and request that TWDB determine if project would be a minor (or major) amendment to 2011 Region C Plan (and 2012 State Water Plan)
Fort Worth submitted proposed amendment material to TWDB (abridged application)

13. Timeline TWDB determined it was a minor amendment
Region C approval of minor amendment to 2011 Region C Plan
TWDB approval of minor amendment to the 2012 State Water Plan
SWIFT application process & approval
Council final approval and acceptance
The good news is…you won’t have to go thru this if your proposed project is already in the State Water Plan!

14. Lessons Learned
Fort Worth used a consultant, familiar with the SWIFT application process, to ensure timeliness and accuracy of document submittal.
What did they do for us?
What did we do on our own?
What value did we receive that we could not have received by doing the entire process on our own?

15. Take Aways! Conservation projects need to be in the State Water Plan
Calculate, evaluate & communicate
How do we communicate conservation savings?

16. Conservation delays costly expansion projects
$87M
$73M
Westside
Southwest
$14M
Rolling Hills
$20 million annual financing
The other thing we have to consider is that reduced consumption allows us to delay costly capital projects.
CLICK The 2005 Water Master Plan required the expansion or construction of three water plants… with an expanded Westside and Rolling Hills Plan and the construction of a Southwest Water Treatment Plant. Here you see the proposed year of construction and the projected cost.
CLICK
The annual financing cost of those projects is estimated at $20M for 2014.
As a result of declining per capita consumption, resulting from Conservation efforts we were able to delay those capital projects up to 20 years. That saved $20M from the current rate calculation.
With the add impact of year-round twice per week, we expect to be able to further delay those projects a few more years.
2019
2035
2028
Twice a week watering
2029
2022
2038

17. Efficient water use defers costly new supply
In addition to the deferred costs for Fort Worth., TRWD benefits financially from conservation efforts. Here you see their cost per 1000 gallons from various future water sources. We talk quite a bit about the cost impact of the Integrated Pipeline project but that pales in comparison to the cost of new reservoirs like Marvin Nichols and Toledo Bend.
The district indicates that current conservation strategies and adding twice per week should delay the need for a major water supply project, like Toledo Bend ($2.75 B), for decades 

18. Questions?

19. Water Conservation Manager City of Fort Worth Water Department
Micah Reed
Water Conservation Manager
City of Fort Worth Water Department