Negotiating the Northeast Water Purification Plant Expansion
Some of the most important work behind the Surface Water Supply Project happened around a conference table. Alia Vinson reflects on the year-and-a-half negotiation process that brought multiple regional partners together to support the design, construction, and funding of the Northeast Water Purification Plant Expansion.
Transcript
Transcript edited for clarity and readability.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with WHRCRWA, I believe, since 2010.
It’s been wonderful to see the West move through many stages of its work—from design and planning, to full construction, and now beyond the 2025 conversion while thinking ahead to the 2035 conversion.
One of the key issues I’ve worked on for many years was the effort it took to negotiate and move forward with the implementation of the City of Houston’s Northeast Water Purification Plant Expansion.
Everyone who was part of that negotiation team was invested in making sure it happened.
Every Thursday morning for a year and a half, we met. We typically had breakfast and lunch because the meetings lasted that long, and we stayed in the room until we negotiated the key points.
It was a tremendous effort to negotiate a process by which all five parties would participate in the design, construction, and funding of a massive 320-million-gallon-per-day water plant.
Watch more from The People Behind the Progress Video Series:
https://www.whcrwa.com/people-behind-the-progress/
