Midland: Securing Reliable Water Supply in 12 Months

Black & Veatch, together with Overland Contracting Inc., developed a unique design-build solution for drought-stricken Midland, Texas. The entire project was completed in just 12 months. Learn more at bit.ly/11iv9j6
Transcript
ANNOUNCER: In 2011, Midland, Texas, faced a challenging equation: growth, plus severe drought, equals water stress. The town's population was growing. Spurred by the petroleum industry, its economy was flourishing. But after several years of severe drought, Midland was running dry.Two of the city's reservoirs were empty. A third was critically low. It was late 2011, and regional water supply cutbacks coming by the end of May 2013 put the city in a difficult spot.
WES PERRY: It was the third-worst drought in our history, so it was a situation where we knew we were trying to solve some water problems for the long-term, but the drought exacerbated it to the point where we really had to make some quick decisions. I describe this as an emergency. We really didn't have a whole lot of choices.
ANNOUNCER: Water. Important in the oil industry and pivotal for any economy. This growing community needed more water ... not less. Midland was staring down a looming water crisis. The city decided to have the Midland County Fresh Water Supply District tap the aquifer beneath its undeveloped T-Bar Ranch property, located many miles to the west near the New Mexico border.
In a joint venture with Garney Construction and other local companies, Black & Veatch established the overall design-build plan to develop the well field and supporting infrastructure and deliver the water.
TODD LARSON: Midland Texas was facing not only a schedule delivery challenge but they also faced challenges with resourcing the job, logistics and a great many other challenges.
We developed a unique solution, and we used our people, systems and knowledge from projects we do all over the world to develop that solution. Our plan set forth a super fast track delivery so that we were able to deliver the water to the city of Midland by May of 2013. The way we did that was by stacking up the design, the procurement and the construction activities. And we also worked with the state regulators to ensure that the approvals process was expedited.
JOSE CUEVAS: What's so impressive about this project is the magnitude and how fast it was built. You're talking about 67 miles of pipeline, 48 inches, and the effort it took from the design and build team, to state legislators community effort, the water district being part of it. Everyone knew the importance of this project and no one was going to upset the cart. We were all going to work in one vision to achieve the goal and exceed expectations.
Everything done in a fashion to achieve this project is crazy. We had to bring electric from nowhere to our location ... build a 2 million gallon tank and a 5 million gallon water tank on location and pouring concrete for the panels and getting all the pumps and the electric. The logistics would boggle the mind.
ANNOUNCER: The project moved rapidly ahead of schedule throughout. Final design was completed by September 2012, and by the end of October, workers completed drilling the wells. Both storage tanks were substantially complete by mid-December.
The new facilities delivered first water on May 14, 2013 -- less than 12 months after officially beginning.
DALE CHERRY: You know it's really amazing to be out here and see all of this come to completion. I couldn't have imagined it -- something of this scale over this distance would've taken three years, maybe four years to acquire all of the right of way and get all the permits to complete, and to think that 12 months ago we started all of this, it's truly amazing, and it just shows you the power of a truly fast track design-build delivery.
JOSE CUEVAS: Once in a generation comes a project so important to a community's survival, and this is the project that saved our community.

[@springsfabricationinc.5858]

We are pleased to see the success of this project and are grateful that Black & Veatch gave Springs Fabrication the opportunity to provide the pressure vessel (shown at 1:38 & 2:07) for this fast paced project.

[@jamieholland8951]

This looks like it is a great new system and its the blend of water storage tanks with other solutions that appear to have made this successful. Great job!

[@keeleydurrance]

Way to go!! Thats awesome!!!! Thank God, may God Bless yall!!