On February 18, 2025, the Miramar City Commission held a workshop to receive the first-ever comprehensive Water and Wastewater Master Plan for the city. The plan covers a 20-year horizon (through 2045) and outlines a total capital improvement program of approximately $568 million, with $246 million in the first five years. Presentations from consultants Brown and Caldwell, Stantec, and Hazen and Sawyer covered water supply and treatment, water distribution and transmission, and wastewater collection and treatment. Commissioners asked substantive questions about funding, growth assumptions, regulatory compliance (including PFAS), and system modernization.
Utility Director Francois DeMont opened the workshop, explaining that the master plan was initiated in 2021 to guide capital improvement priorities, anticipate future needs, and position the city for funding opportunities. The plan includes separate water and wastewater master plans developed with three consulting firms.
Nigel Grace of Brown and Caldwell reviewed the city’s water system. Miramar operates three well fields and two water plants. The East Water Treatment Plant (1950s, rebuilt with nanofiltration in 2019) is at build-out capacity. The West Water Treatment Plant (built 1996, with reverse osmosis added 2012) is the primary expansion site. In 2024, the city secured a 30-year water use permit with an additional 3.4 million gallons per day (mgd) from the Florida aquifer, and a temporary increase from the Biscayne aquifer. The West Water Plant requires $48 million in investment for capacity expansion, reliability, and renewal and replacement.
Mike DuPont of Stantec presented findings from the hydraulic model. The distribution system includes 430 miles of pipeline, two booster stations, and five emergency interconnections. Key deficiencies include:
Phil Cook of Hazen and Sawyer described the wastewater system serving ~140,000 residents. It includes 137 lift stations, 81 miles of force main, and a reclamation plant with 12.7 mgd capacity (currently treating ~10 mgd). Population is projected to increase 16% by 2045, but total flow is expected to rise 34% when planned developments are included – potentially exceeding plant capacity around 2036. Needed upgrades include:
Um this workshop is to present to you the commission um memorable water and wastewater master plan. It's interesting to know, Mr. Mayor, that um over the years the utility department did not have a master plan. And I said interesting to know because when I became director, that's one of the things that I sat down with that staff and um began to work uh begin to work on. And I'm happy to say at this juncture, our current director, Mr. France Wonderman had really taken it to the next level. And we're here today to present this. Um this to the commission. Mr. DeMont. Good evening. Good evening, uh Mayor, Commissioners, City Manager, City Attorney, City Clerk, uh, staff, uh, the public, and also want to say hello to the colleagues that are here presenting with me this evening. Uh, first of all, thank you very much, commissioners, uh, city manager for taking the afternoon this evening to hear the uh primarily the results, recommendations of uh what I call uh what we call the master planning for the water and wastewater system for the city of Miramar. I'd like to begin the workshop by setting up the agenda. Uh primarily can contain the agenda into five distinct points. Nonetheless, we do have an extensive uh workshop or presentation. Uh we're gonna go through the utilities introduction objectives, uh, the utility system overview, the water system, the wastewater system. At the end, we're gonna go to the summary and the next steps. Well, back in 2021, actually, October 2021, the City Commission approved uh two work orders, primarily two for the utilities department to produce and develop two master plans. One, as I mentioned before, the water system, the other one the wastewater system. And the approval of these uh uh two work orders primarily were previewed to knowing that the master planning is as a standard practice for the water and wastewater utilities uh throughout the nation. Number two, understanding the master planning guides and improves the uh improvement priorities with regards to the CIPs and also the spending uh uh on the in the over the planning horizon. And by the way, the planning horizon that uh the smart plans called for is a 20-year horizon. That's what we include in our master plan. So we're looking into 20 years down the road where the city of Miramar should be as regards to the utilities. And of course, uh as the city manager mentioned, uh unfortunately, unfortunately, City of Myanmar has never uh created a particular documents for the water and wastewater utilities with regards to the master planning. So this is the first time therefore we are extremely excited to be part of this process. So what's master planning is important, what are the benefits. I found three, we found three different uh bullets. We can probably put a hundred bullets in in the in the screen. Uh number one is alliance investment priorities. We anticipated future, primarily is dealing with the future, overseeing the needs of the utilities, and also being flexible and also dynamic as to what changes are coming down the pike. Enables the city to capitalize in the verge of funding opportunities. With regards to the master planning, every uh most of the regulatory agencies that provide funding for utilities and for cities to provide to for to fund the projects, they like to see a planning document. And this is what we bring into the table. Two planning documents so we can have a roadmap as to as to where to go with the utilities. And of course, keeps the information rolling in regards to the annual capital project planning priorities. I'm sorry, went back. Moving forward, so this this primarily this slide wanted to illustrate as to the process of the waste master planning and also how we see it be prioritize the CIP in the future. The consultants and also utility staff, uh, by the way, I want to say hello to the staff that are here present and thank you for the support. Uh the utility the consultants in coordination with the staff, we went through the priority drivers, which includes performance, asset condition, growth capacity, regulatory compliance, and also reliability of our existing systems. We went through data considerations, uh, primarily includes uh the historical uh maintenance of our facilities. It's it's also includes uh any new regulations that are coming down the pike. We also look again at the capacity review, and the consultants provide a modeling tools for us to improve our our system. All that is mixed into the evaluation criteria. We prioritize the projects according to criticality. Also, every utility project that you embark on requires a schedule, and unfortunately, the our projects are multi-year projects, and also they require a number of uh a lot of funding at the world as well. So we create a ballpark estimate at this point that we're gonna present towards the the end of the presentation, and also that ends out to that the end result is primarily capital improvement programs. Every year the commission approves a CIP for different departments. Uh this year's this year we wanna base our CIP in what the recommendations of these master plans bring.