Employee Input Improves Utilities

Back in 2013, employees in the planning and analysis division in the Hampton Roads Sanitation District came up with a bold idea: Close a wastewater treatment plant that needed significant upgrades and divert the flow it was handling to another plant with sufficient capacity. The estimated savings: $130 million. Senior management at the utility, based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, approved the proposal and began building the necessary diversion infrastructure. And years later, the plant was shut down.A post-shutdown analysis, aimed at determining whether the assumptions made in the initial proposal were good or bad, revealed that the move actually saved the