Water and Sewer team makes sure it’s ready before future growth

In a massive version of “look before you leap,” the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department is undertaking a study to “look at what county growth is expected and project out our needs,” department Director Roy Coley told Miami Today last week.

The study began last year, undertaken by the New York-based water system consultant Hazen and Sawyer. The 72-year-old company has more than 70 offices in 29 states, including nine in Florida. Its Miami-Dade County office is at 999 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Coral Gables.

A more technical term for the look/leap proverb would be “concurrency,” a key factor in Florida’s 1985 growth management legislation. “At its core,” says a Florida Department of Community Affairs white paper published in 2007 by Florida State University, “is a state requirement that development is not to proceed unless infrastructure capacity and specific urban services are in place to service the new development.”

“We have hired Hazen and Sawyer as an outside expert consultant,” Mr. Coley told Miami Today, “to take our own growth modeling and look at … county growth … and project out when needs will be there, and then look at our modeling to see if we can meet those demands.

“If we cannot, we will need to make improvements,” he said.

Hazen and Sawyer is no stranger to Miami-Dade County. The firm has consulted on the county’s inflow/infiltration reduction program, a wastewater facilities master plan, a wastewater high level disinfection project, and a 2004 Biscayne Bay economic study.

Mr. Coley has more than a quarter century in water resource management positions. He was appointed director of the county water and sewer department in 2021.

He doesn’t expect anything from Hazen and Sawyer for another six months, he told Miami Today.

“It’s a pretty comprehensive analysis they’re doing,” he said, “looking at planning and zoning and hydraulic capacities, usage trends both locally and nationally to see what should we expect in the coming decades of how much water per person we use, which translates to how much sewer capacity per person you need.”

“The fact is,” he said, “Miami-Dade County is growing faster than anybody thought…. I think we’re now projected to break 3 million people by 2025, and the trajectory doesn’t seem to be slowing down.”

The estimated population of Miami-Dade County by the US Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2022, was 2.67 million.

“We’re trying to get ahead of that,” Mr. Coley said, “to make sure we can accommodate whatever growth that our governing body determines is appropriate.”