Multi-agency Benchmarking Project -- King County Wastewater Treatment Division

Participating Agencies

Multi-agency Benchmarking Project

Central Contra Costa
Sanitary District
(CCCSD)

City of Los Angeles
Bureau of Sanitation
(CLABS)

City of Portland
Bureau of
Environmental Services
(CPBES)

East Bay
Municipal Utility District
(EBMUD)

King County
Department of
Natural Resources
(KCDNR)

Orange County
Sanitation District
(OCSD)

Sacramento
Regional County
Sanitation District
(SRCSD)

Laboratory Only

Massachusetts
Water Resources
Authority
(MWRA)

City of San Jose
SJ/SC Water Pollution
Control Plant
(WPCP)

The Multi-Agency Benchmarking Project is a collaborative effort of seven West Coast wastewater utilities to compare their processes, performance, and costs. By collecting and studying process and performance information, the participants intended to improve their own business practices, thereby reducing costs, gaining efficiencies, and ultimately improving service delivery to ratepayers. Secondary goals were to develop and foster open communications among participating agencies, leading to an ongoing commitment to exchange information among participants.

The benchmarking effort has been conducted in two phases.

Phase One

In the first phase, three participating agencies (EBMUD, OCSD, and SRCSD) performed detailed benchmarking analyses to accurately and completely compare their respective operating costs. The three agencies, collectively known as the Tri-Agencies, developed a methodology to collect and compare operational costs between plants with different configurations, thus addressing one of the largest challenges faced by the wastewater treatment industry in benchmarking and comparative analysis.

Phase Two

The second phase, launched in mid-1997, expanded the project to include four more wastewater agencies (CCCSD, CLABS, CPBES, and KCDNR), which provided a more comprehensive collection of cost data. The Multi-Agencies collaborated to expand and refine the work done in the first phase of the project, allowing the participants to share information with confidence in the collection methodology used.

The following files present the findings of the second phase and are in Adobe Acrobat form.

Technical Memorandum
published January 1999.

Executive Summary
published September 1999. (For best results, this file should be printed from a PostScript compatible color laser printer.)

Capital Engineering
published December 1999

Municipal Environmental Laboratory
published December 1999
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Appendix F
Appendix G
Appendix H
Appendix I
Appendix J

Operation & Maintenance
published December 1999
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Appendix F

Source Control
Work group report, published December 1999
Best practices technical memo, published November 2002

For questions about the Wastewater Treatment Division Web site, please send an e-mail message or contact us at:

Department of Natural Resources and Parks
Wastewater Treatment Division
201 S. Jackson St., Suite 505
Seattle, WA 98104-3855
Phone: 206-684-1280
Fax: 206-684-1741
Telecommunication device for the deaf (TTY): 711

Updated: Nov. 20, 2002

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