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Home My WebLink About10-14-19 City Commission Packet Materials - C7. Amendment 3 to TO 11 of the PSMTO with HDR Eng for the WRF MPDES Permitting Commission Memorandum REPORT TO: Honorable Mayor and City Commission FROM: Brian Heaston, Senior Engineer Mitch Reister, Director of Public Works SUBJECT: Authorize the City Manager to execute Amendment No. 3 to Task Order No. 11 of the Professional Services Master Task Order Agreement with the firm of HDR Engineering, Inc. providing additional services for Montana Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (MPDES) permitting assistance. MEETING DATE: October 14, 2019 AGENDA ITEM TYPE: Consent RECOMMENDATION: Authorize the City Manager to execute Amendment No. 3 to Task Order No. 11 of the Professional Services Master Task Order Agreement with the firm of HDR Engineering, Inc. providing additional services for Montana Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (MPDES) permitting assistance. BACKGROUND: HDR Engineering provides professional engineering services on as on call basis for the Bozeman Water Reclamation Facility (WRF) under a Master Task Order Agreement entered into a March 20, 2017. Task Order 11 provides engineering services for Montana Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (MPDES) permitting assistance for the WRF. The MPDES is run by Montana DEQ and is more commonly referred to as a ‘discharge permit’. The federal Clean Water Act requires all publicly operated treatment works (POTWs) in Montana to obtain a discharge permit from Montana DEQ under the MPDES program in order to discharge treated effluent to a waterway. The Bozeman WRF is a POTW. The Bozeman WRF discharge permit expired in 2017, 5 years after it was issued by DEQ in 2012. Prior to expiration, the City filed a timely application for discharge permit renewal and is currently under a DEQ administrative extension of its expired permit until a new discharge permit is developed. Discussions surrounding the discharge permit renewal have been ongoing with DEQ since the current permit expired. The original Task Order 11, its prior amendments, and attached Amendment No. 3 provide ongoing technical support from HDR to assist with the discharge permit renewal discussions as they proceed into the future. The current discharge permit places limitations on the amount of various treated effluent constituents that the WRF is allowed to discharge to the East Gallatin River. Discharge limits for nutrients, Total Nitrogen (TN) and Total Phosphorous (TP), are included in the current 112 permit. Discharge limits are developed to meet DEQ water quality standards. Nutrient water quality standards for the East Gallatin River were modified by DEQ in July 2014 and approved by EPA in February 2015. These new nutrient water quality standards contain numeric criteria for instream TN and TP concentrations that wholly replace the previous narrative nutrient criteria that were used to develop nutrient discharge limits contained in the current WRF discharge permit. The numeric nutrient criteria for the East Gallatin River are 0.3 mg/L TN and 0.04 mg/L TP. These numeric nutrient criteria are beyond the limits of any currently available wastewater treatment technology to achieve. For comparative purposes, the Bozeman WRF treated effluent discharges on average 4.6 mg/L TP and 0.16 mg/L TP. Numeric nutrient criteria is a paradigm shift in DEQ’s state-wide nutrient compliance policy. The significance and complexities inherent with numeric nutrient criteria compliance cannot be overstated. This is a literal game changer, is immensely complex from both a technical and administrative perspective, will likely require significant future capital expenditures in WRF technology investments (feasibility level capital cost for the next level of nutrient removal treatment, 3.0 mg/L TN and 0.1 mg/L TP, is ~$80mln), and is fraught with immense uncertainty. DEQ, recognizing that numeric nutrient criteria are beyond the limits of any currently available wastewater treatment technology to achieve, developed a complementary nutrient water quality standards variance under its MPDES program concurrently with its numeric nutrient criteria. This nutrient variance program must also be approved by EPA, which it did concurrently in its February 2015 approval of DEQ’s numeric nutrient criteria, allowing a 20-year period for Montana POTW dischargers to achieve the underlying numeric nutrient criteria (0.3 mg/L TP and 0.04 mg/L TP for the East Gallatin River), which again are beyond the limits of any currently available wastewater technology to achieve. The approved nutrient variance program allows for a time-limited interim water quality standard for purposes of MPDES discharge permitting based on achieving the ‘Highest Attainable Condition’ (HAC) for nutrient water quality in the receiving stream. The HAC is expressed as a performance based effluent concentration for both TN and TP for given categories of POTW dischargers that meets specific affordability criteria set out by DEQ and EPA. The HAC is designed to make incremental progress towards achieving the underlying numeric nutrient criteria by 2034, the year coinciding with the end of EPA’s 20-year approval period for the nutrient variance. To ensure incremental progress towards the underlying numeric nutrient criteria, DEQ must, under federal regulations, review the HAC every three-years to determine if any new nutrient treatment technologies have emerged and have advanced to the point of being affordable to implement. The current HAC establishes plant performance levels at 6 mg/L TN and 0.3 mg/L TP. These values were developed by DEQ and approved by EPA in 2017. The Bozeman WRF is comfortably achieving these HAC performance levels currently. DEQ’s next three year review of the HAC begins in 2020. It is not known whether these performance levels will move further downward in this review cycle to the next level of nutrient removal, 3.0 mg/L TN and 0.1 mg/L TP (as mentioned above, this performance level at Bozeman WRF is an ~$80mln capital expenditure). 113 Furthermore, because the Bozeman WRF was performing better than current HAC when it was established in 2017, DEQ and EPA have signaled they will push for capping the WRF’s permitted discharges at its current nutrient performance level with the renewed discharge permit. Essentially, capping would deprive the City of the planned treatment capacity it has invested $54 million in if it is forced to maintain current performance with its discharge permit renewal. In other words, if a performance cap is forced on the City, the remaining available plant capacity would in a practical sense be reallocated away from growth simply to maintain current nutrient treatment performance, which would then call for additional capital expenditures to increase the overall capacity of the WRF to stay ahead of growth. Further complicating matters is the three year review of the HAC. When HAC moves further downward, additional capital expenditures would be needed to meet the new HAC’s more stringent performance levels. DEQ’s nutrient variance program also allows for a nutrient variance to be based on detailed water quality modeling of a receiving waterway. The City has collected a significant amount of nutrient water quality data on the East Gallatin River and HDR has developed a detailed nutrient water quality model from these data. Model-based variance discussions are ongoing with DEQ as part of the discharge permit renewal process. There is a large amount of uncertainty as to how DEQ will handle a water quality based variance, and how a model-based variance interrelates with the current HAC or a more stringent future HAC. Nutrient compliance is an incredibly difficult problem facing the Bozeman WRF. Staff are grappling with the complexities and trying to identify and stay ahead of major compliance issues. There’s a large amount of uncertainty surrounding nutrient compliance which makes planning for the future difficult. Ongoing MPDES permit assistance from our technical expert HDR Engineering is essential for the City to successfully navigate this regulatory environment to arrive at a reasonable outcome. FISCAL EFFECTS: The approved FY20 WRF operating budget contains a $60,000 line item for MPDES permitting assistance. Amendment No. 3 to Task Order 11 provides $20,000 for this task as an incremental step. Services are provided on a time and materials basis. Additional amendments will be brought forward once this $20,000 task allocation is depleted. ALTERNATIVES: As suggested by the Commission ATTACHMENTS: Amendment No. 3 to Task Order No. 11 Hyperlinked: Professional Services Master Task Order Agreement report compiled on October 3, 2019 114 AMENDMENT NO. 03 TASK ORDER NO. 11 FOR ENGINEERING SERVICES MPDES PERMITTING SERVICES WHEREAS: HDR ENGINEERING, INC. ("HDR") entered into an Agreement on August 22, 2018 and amended on November 11, 2018 to perform engineering services for the City of Bozeman ("CITY"); The CITY desires to amend this Agreement in order for HDR to perform services beyond those previously contemplated; HDR is willing to amend the agreement and perform the additional engineering services. NOW, THEREFORE, HDR and the CITY do hereby agree: The Agreement and the terms and conditions therein shall remain unchanged other than those sections and exhibits listed below; COMPENSATION: The anticipated level of effort for the task is increased by $20,000 extendable by the City of Bozeman on a time and materials basis. Original Compensation: $10,000.00 Amendment 01: $10,000.00 Amendment 02: $10,000.00 Amendment 03: $20,000.00 Total Compensation: $50,000.00 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have executed this Amendment as of the day and year written below: HDR ENGINEERING, INC. ("HDR") City of Bozeman ("CITY") By:____________________________ By:_______________________________ Title: Vice President Title:______________________________ Date: 9/26/19 Date:_____________________________ 115