Georgia county joins water treatment partnership
Fulton County, Ga., has selected Chicago-based Veolia Water North America for a five-year, $58 million public-private partnership agreement to manage and operate the county’s four wastewater treatment facilities and 30 pump stations, which serve more than 300,000 people. Veolia was selected in a competitive procurement process from three prospective vendors.
Under the partnership, Fulton County will continue to own all wastewater assets and maintain rate-setting authority. Veolia Water will be responsible for operations and maintenance of the county’s assets.
Veolia Water will manage about 65 employees at the facilities as part of the agreement. In its contract proposal, Veolia Water described its comprehensive project team of local and minority subcontractors. Veolia Water will serve as an on-going business partner with the subcontractors in a protégé-mentor relationship under the Fulton County deal.
Veolia Water is well acquainted with Fulton County, as the company has operated Atlanta-Fulton County’s 90-million-gallons-per-day north area Water Treatment Facility for 20 years. The project partnership has won 50 industry awards, including the OSHA VPP Gold Star Award for sustained excellence in environmental health and safety compliance. In 2006, the project partnership won the Distinguished Service Award from the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships.
Veolia Water also operates the new 15-million-gallons-per-day Johns Creek Environmental Campus in Fulton County. The $137-million facility has the largest submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR) system in the United States for treating wastewater to an effluent quality that is being used for beneficial reuse.
Veolia Water North America provides water and wastewater partnership services to municipal and industrial customers, and delivers services to 14 million people in 650 North American communities. The company is part of the Veolia Environnement companies in North America, with 30,000 employees providing environmental solutions in water management, waste services, energy management and passenger transportation.
Veolia Water also has recently won water management contracts in Buffalo, N.Y., and Haldimand County, Ontario.
