Water Design–Build Council Meets in Washington D.C.

The Water Design-Build Council (WDBC), established in 2006, was created to serve as an advocate for the value of design-build for water and wastewater projects. The council held its annual board of directors meeting Dec. 2 in Washington D.C.  

The Council’s first priority in 2009 is to educate the new administration, Congress and stakeholders on the enormous need for investment in our nation’s aging water and wastewater systems, to urge them to commit stimulus funds for water and wastewater projects, and to specifically support design-build project delivery as a mechanism to accelerate those efforts.

The WDBC has also commissioned a university study on the performance of design-build vs. conventional design-bid-build for municipal water and wastewater projects. Study results should enable owners and stakeholders to evaluate alternative project delivery systems based on credible conclusions developed from a statistically significant data set of municipal water and wastewater infrastructure projects.

In 2008, the WDBC completed a survey of municipal water executives who have used design-build for their projects. Of note, the survey results reported that the major reasons design-build was chosen was single-point accountability and the ability for the builder to be involved in the design process.

Guest speakers at the meeting included Diane Van de Hei, Executive Director, Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) and Bernie Krzys, Publisher of Trenchless Technology and UIM magazines.

The WDBC is comprised of the following members Brown and Caldwell, Black & Veatch, Carollo Engineers, CDM, CH2M Hill, AECOM, Haskell, HDR, MWH Constructors and Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies.