Facility Siting Analysis

Clark Regional Wastewater District, one of Washington's largest wastewater districts, has experienced considerable expansion of its service territory over the past decade, which has resulted in maintenance cost increases. The District was interested in determining if there is a more efficient approach. 

FLO looked at the impact on current maintenance activities and focused on the district’s main operations facility location to provide a baseline case, incorporating multiple criteria based on the district’s needs. This included external factors such as zoning, vacancy, and sensitive areas; internal factors included ease of access and the spatial relationship to existing infrastructure. Armed with this information, FLO expanded its analysis to identify potential sites that might meet the District’s needs and evaluate those using a relative measure of suitability and efficiency.

We then performed a demand analysis to establish a return on investment for each of these suitable sites. The key to this analysis involved mapping the location and quantifying the demand of their expansive customer and infrastructure base throughout Clark County using basin boundaries. This process included determining a summary of customers and infrastructure, the frequency with which maintenance crews visited these locations, and the cost incurred with each visit. This analysis helped identify future potential growth areas and highlight increased infrastructure needs.

FLO combined this data into a custom road network drive-time model to represent the maintenance travel costs and used the data to identify the optimal locations for potential maintenance facilities, along with the expected cost savings and return on investment associated with each. This information was then incorporated into the District’s long-term facility planning strategy, enabling them to look ahead and identify future issues and solutions to assist decision making and budgets.