Cover_Letter_Advanced_Water_Purification_Tech_Support_Proposal_Geosyntec.pdf

PROPOSAL FOR

Advanced Water Purification Technical Support Solicitation No. BPM005664

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Prepared for: Prepared by:

October 17, 2023

Ms. Patricia Lorenzen Senior Procurement Specialist Arizona Department of Environmental Quality

Subject: Solicitation No. BPM005664 - Advanced Water Purification Technical Support

Dear Ms. Lorenzen:

Our mission is to help the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) develop balanced, leading-edge, and technically and operationally excellent guidance documents for Arizona to use in the development of advanced water purification (AWP) projects. These documents should be inclusive, informative, and radically simple for consumers, ADEQ, and clients, while being protective of public health and the environment. As such, Geosyntec Consultants, Inc. (Geosyntec) and Carollo Engineers (Carollo) are pleased to submit our proposal to ADEQ in response to Solicitation No. BPM005664 - Advanced Water Purification Technical Support. Geosyntec looks forward to providing continued support to ADEQ related to AWP and we are proud to add Carollo’s unparalleled applicable experience and expertise to our ADEQ AWP support team.

Geosyntec’s project team has access to more than 200 practitioners that specialize in water and wastewater across the United States and Canada covering 11 offices. These practitioners have experience providing water-related services to multiple sectors, including municipal/ governmental, food and beverage, mining, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, fuels, and power. In addition, Geosyntec has long-standing experience working closely with ADEQ, including providing support with developing new regulatory programs, guidance documents, and regulatory training. To date, Geosyntec staff have assisted ADEQ with the development of a draft AWP Roadmap document that provides a resource for stakeholders to implement direct potable reuse (DPR, also known as AWP) programs in the State of Arizona, development and delivery of municipal wastewater treatment operator training modules, draft vapor intrusion guidance, and development of Underground Injection Control Project training modules. Our proposed Project Director, Kirk Craig, participated in an ADEQ kaizen that resulted in the optimization and streamlining of the Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund (WQARF) Remedial Investigation, Feasibility Study, and Remedy Implementation processes, and our extended staff have provided environmental consulting services and successfully advanced the remedial process at 16 WQARF sites.

Carollo has provided planning, design, and construction management services for water and wastewater utilities serving populations ranging from less than 5,000 to more than 2 million throughout the United States and in Arizona. They supported the development of a regulatory path to DPR in Arizona through many phases. After participation in several stakeholder groups, Carollo actively participated in the development of the “Guidance Framework for Direct Potable

Reuse in Arizona” (2018) published by the National Water Research Institute on behalf of WateReuse Arizona and AZ Water Association. In 2022, Carollo co-organized and provided multiple subject matter expert presentations during four technical workshops conducted to educate ADEQ staff in preparation for rulemaking efforts. Currently, they have two members serving on the Technical Advisory Group for the AWP rulemaking effort and are actively crafting regulatory language focused on protecting public health while maintaining implementable and flexible rule language.

The Geosyntec and Carollo team is uniquely qualified to provide ADEQ with excellent services on this project. Based on these qualifications, our proposed team has prepared the attached response highlighting our approach to the project. We believe that our team provides unparalleled experience and expertise that will ensure the success of this very important project.

• Familiarity with ADEQ:

Geosyntec and Carollo have a long history of working with ADEQ on several successful projects, including the development of the AWP Roadmap, completion of the Wastewater Operator Training Project, and support with the Central Tucson PFAS Project. As a result, we understand how to work with ADEQ and more broadly AWP stakeholders to establish and implement regulations that meet ADEQ’s AWP goals and objectives and are acceptable to the various stakeholders.

• Experience in AWP Implementation:

Our team has been involved in dozens of municipal AWP projects across the United States, including the City of El Paso AWP Facility, City of Tucson, and City of Scottdale.

We also have experience delivering numerous advanced water treatment projects to remediate complex waste streams several highly contaminated Superfund and industrial sites that have included per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, 1.4-dioxane, nitrates, total dissolved solids, perchlorate, chlorinated solvents, and heavy metals. We will use this experience and our prior work developing the AWP Roadmap to help ADEQ rapidly and cost-effectively prepare a robust set of technical guidance documents that are radically simple to implement as part of the State’s AWP program.

• Industrial Pretreatment and Enhanced Source Control Program Experience:

Our team has supported multiple municipalities across the country in establishing and updating their pretreatment programs, and most recently we are assisting municipalities with management of unregulated contaminants from industrial dischargers within the pretreatment program framework. We also have helped establish some of the first enhanced source control programs and prepared industry-leading guidance on enhanced source control documents with the Water Research Foundation.

• National and Local Experts:

The combined team from both our firms provides ADEQ with experts who can bring well over a hundred years of combined experience. Jason Kerstiens has extensive experience with drinking water, municipal wastewater, and industrial treatment process engineering and project management experience spanning over 23 years, including managing the ADEQ AWP Roadmap document that that Geosyntec prepared in 2022–2023. Kirk Craig brings a wealth of experience in emerging contaminant treatment experience, including PFAS, and experience managing hundreds of projects in Arizona and dozens with ADEQ. Eva Steinle-Darling is Carollo’s National Water Reuse Expert and has experience supporting AWP regulatory development, guidance documents, pilot projects, and large-scale AWP implementation. George Maseeh is Carollo’s Arizona lead for water reuse projects and has worked on potable reuse projects throughout the Southwest and in Arizona. Beth Toot-Levy was previously the pretreatment coordinator for the Northeast Ohio Sanitary District. She is supporting dozens of municipalities in developing industrial pretreatment programs, and she brings in-depth knowledge of the national pretreatment program and practical experience in all aspects of its implementation. Jason Flowers has over 23 years of experience in in municipal and industrial wastewater system planning and optimization. Benjamin Armel with Carollo is a grade 5 Water Treatment Operator in California with 18 years of operation and maintenance experience. Lisa Andrews brings 24 years of experience in industrial and municipal water projects, an understanding of regulatory agency perspectives from time working with and for them, and project management certification to support delivery of complex projects.

Our proposed labor rates and costs are intended to provide an initial budgetary estimate based on the limited scope of work that ADEQ provided in the Request for Proposal. Our costs for each task are subject to negotiation and will be refined once our team works with ADEQ to establish a more detailed scope definition.

If you have any questions regarding this proposal, please feel free to contact the undersigned at 602-513-5815 / kcraig@geosyntec.com or 720-509-8909 / jkerstiens@geosyntec.com, respectively.

Sincerely, Kirk Craig, PE (AZ, CO) Project Director/ Senior Principal Engineer

Jason Kerstiens, PE (CO, CA) Project Manager/Principal Engineer mailto:kcraig@geosyntec.com mailto:jkerstiens@geosyntec.com