ADMINISTRATION

Consolidated all safety and regulatory functions under a new Regulatory Compliance Office to improve efficiencies and ensure treatment and operationsemployees remain up to date on all ODEQ and EPA regulations.

Completed our Risk and Resilience Assessments under the Federal America’s Water Infrastructure Act through examination of potential system vulnerabilities and threats, which helps to plan for continuity of service in face of a disaster.

Completed first steps in applying for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in partnership with the Oklahoma Quality Foundation, including inspections of our facilities and operations.

ENGINEERING

Awarded construction contracts for three more segments of the second Atoka Pipeline; the 100-mile, 72-inch pipeline that connects our raw water supply in Southeast Oklahoma to the Draper Water Treatment Plant (WTP). As of FY 2023, five of the nine segments are under construction, and three of the four boreholes associated with the major crossing of the Canadian River have been completed.

Completed the replacement of 28 segments of the 72-inch water main near the Draper WTP, which improves the resiliency of the water distribution system.

Continued the construction of new lime facilities and ozone system improvements at the Hefner WTP. The new lime facilities are scheduled to come online by late 2024, and the ozone system will come online by mid-2025.

Began modernizing the South Canadian Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) to improve system efficiency and increase treatment capacities to keep up with projected future demand. The project is under construction with an estimated completion in 2027.

Began construction of improvements at the North Canadian WWTP that will upgrade the electrical power system and address other aging infrastructure.

Updated the design of significant process improvements at the North Canadian WWTP and Deer Creek WWTP to improve performance and resiliency.

FLEET SERVICES

Maintained our Blue Seal Certification from the Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) group with 91% of our mechanics certified as ASE Master Mechanics, meaning Fleet staff can keep more equipment operational and reduce the amount of equipment out of service.

LINE MAINTENANCE

Updated 5,400 customer water meters as part of a pilot introducing new Automated Meter Reading (AMR) technology to improve meter reading efficiency and billing accuracy and ensure the safety of our meter reader workers.

SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

Reduced the number of missed trash, recycling, and bulky waste calls by 47% by implementing new mobile technologies to ensure route completion. Additionally, we addressed staffing gaps by filling vacancies, which provided better coverage to more effectively complete routes, further reducing the number of missed-collection complaints.

In comparison to the three recycling audits preceding those conducted in FY 2023, we reduced the percentage of residuals collected by approximately 16% through enhanced customer communication and inspection efforts geared toward reinforcing adherence to recycling program guidelines.

UTILITIES CUSTOMER SERVICE

Implemented an automated identity verification and credit validation program for new customers. In addition to instant deposit decisions, we can now automatically qualify customers for our low-income solid waste services rate. Since implementation, we have increased the number of customers participating in the solid waste rate-reduction program by about 207%.

Our Water Conservation team facilitated 115 educational workshops for more than 18,000 participants, including our “Mother Earth” partnership with OKC Beautiful to bring water conservation messaging to area elementary schools.

UTILITIES ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS

Integrated all 11 individual Water and Wastewater Quality monitoring systems into a single enterprise system to increase efficiency and enhance system security and reliability.

Deployed a new electronic permitting system for the Wastewater Quality division’s commercial and industrial pretreatment program so customers can self-manage their permit accounts online.

Began migrating our customer billing system to a new cloud-based system to streamline the billing process and improve alignment with other Utilities business systems.

WATER QUALITY

Completed a Sanitary Survey of the City’s Water Quality treatment and distribution assets in cooperation with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) to examine all assets of our water treatment plants, surge towers, and booster stations.

Our Environmental Laboratory continues to install sampling stations throughout the metro for regulatory compliance testing of drinking water. These stations are tied directly into our treated water distribution system to ensure quality control.

The Environmental Laboratory also began implementation of LabWare, a laboratory information management system, to improve data reporting efficiency and the laboratory’s ability to query, compile, analyze, and trend data.

WASTEWATER QUALITY 

•Commisioned our Wastewater Quality Environmental Unit Specialists as Environmental Officers for the City of Oklahoma City to create a more efficient enforcement program and improve interactions with pretreatment permit holders.

Modified our wastewater treatment facility inspection program to improve our ability to identify and review issues that need to be addressed by our contractor.

Maintained high equipment reliability in our wastewater lift stations, which are an integral part of our wastewater collections system. These stations have small storage capacity and can quickly get overrun. Thanks to our staff and our keep the system running efficiently and avert environmental incidents.