Water Pollution Control: Capital Improvement Projects

In the 2024 – 2025 fiscal year, the Water Pollution Control Division Capital Improvement Projects infrastructure gap (total unfunded projects) is $26,500,000

Water Pollution Control Division (WPC) Capital Improvement Projects (CIPs) relate to the City's sanitary sewer and stormwater systems. The City's sanitary sewer system dates back to the 1870s and was originally designed to convey both sewer and storm drainage, as was standard in older northeast cities. Large portions of the stormwater system were installed in the 1970s to support the City's sewer/storm separation program. Due to the age of these systems, increased population, urbanization, and climate impacts, the existing system infrastructure requires intensive repairing, replacing, and improving. These larger-scale projects are identified as CIPs as they tend to be more costly than typical operational expenses. WPC operates as an enterprise fund and is responsible for its own financial accounting independent of the overall City budget. WPC's typical operations are NOT funded through property taxes but instead by sewer rates & fees charged in water bills. In contrast, CIPs are typically funded by a combination of sewer rates & fees, state revolving fund loans (SRF), and awarded grants. While WPC aims to supplement these high expenditures through external funding opportunities, it is insufficient to cover CIPs' funding necessities. The current CIP list does not wholly include all of the Division's critical large-scale projects, which arise based on the system's infrastructure needs. Some recent examples of this include:

 

Wellington Avenue Tide Gate (2024): $2M+ (supplemented by $500,000 in grants) construction of a tide gate to curb historical flooding issues in the Fifth Ward neighborhood caused by storm surges and extreme tides.

Long Wharf Pump Station Resiliency Improvements (2024 - 2025): $8.5M+ (supplemented by $1.5M+ in grants and a $7M loan) construction project to improve the performance, reliability, and flood resiliency of the facility and subsequently reduce water quality improvements in Newport Harbor. Sewer pump stations function by pumping wastewater flow from one place to another when it cannot be naturally carried by gravity, ensuring flow gets delivered to our Wastewater Treatment Facility. The Long Wharf Pump Station (originally constructed in 1956 and last upgraded in 2003) is the primary pump station in the City due to its low point in the sewer system and the amount of flow it collects.

See below for more details on CIP projects, which can also be found in the City's FY25 Adopted Budget (starting on page 109).