City Manager Presents to Michigan Water Environmental Association

City's Asset Management Plan Showcased.

          FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

         CONTACT: Tyler Dotson, City Manager

January 26, 2021

City Manager Presents Watervliet’s Comprehensive Asset-Management Plan at Michigan Water Environmental Association’s (MWEA) Winter Seminar

Data, Strategy, Engineering, & Funding Options Showcased.

Watervliet, MI –City Manager Tyler Dotson, Asset Management Consultant, Frank LaPierre, President of Innovatrack, and Sam Leatch, City of Watervliet Client Representative of Wightman Engineering, recently presented the City of Watervliet Communitywide Asset Management Program (CAMP) at the MWEA Asset Management Conference on 1/20/21.  

"We really enjoyed presenting the City of Watervliet CAMP program as an advanced, Asset Management program that is very much in-line with the recently announced Michigan Infrastructure Council’s (MIC) Asset Management Readiness Assessment program,” stated Dotson. “The City has spent over three years, working with Frank and our engineering firm, Wightman, to develop our extensive CAMP program. It will provide significant savings to our community through the efficient and sophisticated management of our capital investment dollars for four of our asset classes (water, storm, sewer, roads). We are also excited to potentially assist SWMPC and other communities in Southwest Michigan and, potentially throughout Michigan, with the development and implementation of their Asset Management Assessment initiatives” he went on to say.

During the presentation LaPierre stated that “the City’s CAMP program provides a very comprehensive and extensive Asset Management program.  It involves the development and ongoing implementation of concurrent, 20-year plans for the management, funding and reporting of numerous asset classes. By combining the data collected from the SAW program, with other asset management plans, we have developed a sophisticated operational template that is a well advanced, as realized on the MIC Asset Management Assessment SCALE program.  We are now working with software companies to develop an efficient, semi-automated process to more efficiently analyze, update and report on the ongoing, simultaneous management and funding of the 20-year capital improvement programs of all four of the City’s asset classes. We are thrilled that this also includes the program for the replacement and mitigation of Lead and Copper lines in the water system that is mandated by the State of Michigan."

The Watervliet City Commission has authorized the CAMP and has hopes to address the City’s aging infrastructure through an array of funding mechanisms in the near future. Currently the City is engaged with the USDA-Rural Development Program, Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, Strategic Water Quality Initiatives Fund, and Drinking Water Asset Management Grant program, to provide a unique approach to funding the needed improvements. The City has already realized savings from utilizing the plans, with the awarding of a MDOT Category B funding grant for $117,000 towards the Elm St. Improvements project in which the City hopes to have completed by the end of the year.

Dotson, LaPierre, and SWMPC, are working on the co-development of programs to assist other Southwest Michigan communities and the State of Michigan’s Association of Region’s regions to implement their MIC Asset Management SCALE programs. The hope is to develop partnerships with area municipalities that could save resources from being spent on behalf by the City and its customers. Dotson and LaPierre will be presenting to the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission (SWMPC) Board of Directors on February 16.