Browsing by Subject "City of Austin"
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Item A case study of the city of Austin's Colony Park sustainable community initiative(2013-12) Koch, Jessi Ray; Wilson, Barbara B. (Barbara Brown); Almy, DeanThis study explores the City of Austin Colony Park Sustainable Community Initiative, a three-year planning project funded through a U.S. Housing and Urban Development Office of Sustainable Communities and Housing Community Challenge Planning Grant. The final outcome of the Colony Park Sustainable Community Initiative will include a master plan for 208 acres of publicly owned land in east Austin, located off of Loyola Lane between the Colony Park and Lakeside neighborhoods. The Colony Park Sustainable Community Initiative considers a study area of five census tracts that surround the 208 acre site. The City of Austin's Neighborhood Housing and Community Development is the lead department on The Colony Park Sustainable Community Initiative, however, all City of Austin departments are stakeholders as well as all residents of the five census tracts that make of the project study area. The study includes a historical context for the relationship between community leaders of the Colony Park-Lakeside area and City of Austin officials and department employees. I explore the complex activities and events that have taken place over the course of the first year and a half of the grant term, and the significance of these events for the future of the project and surrounding community moving forward.Item City of Austin’s data culture still under construction(2015-05) Boria Gonzalez, Laura Marina; McDonald, Christian; Chen, GinaMost open government initiatives across the United States focus on transparency, where local governments publish information online about its operations. By giving people access to the data used to run government operations, others can use that data to solve city problems or create additional services, like the congressional tracking website GovTrack. This project is an attempt to understand the issues surrounding the City of Austin’s initiative to open up its data. The city joined the open data movement with the selection and launch of their Socrata portal in 2011. But the local government didn’t just come up with the idea of launching an open data portal by itself. Austin’s open government data movement has been largely led by grassroots efforts.Item Optimizing denitrification at Austin’s Walnut Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant(2010-08) Hughes, Mark Patrick, 1986-; Lawler, Desmond F.; Malina, Joseph F., 1935-In natural waters, high concentrations of ammonia are toxic to fish, and the oxidation of ammonia to nitrate (NO₃-) consumes large quantities of dissolved oxygen. The influent to municipal wastewater treatment plants in the United States typically contains approximately 40 mg/L of ammonia nitrogen (NH₃₋ N). Almost all of this ammonia must be removed in a wastewater treatment process before the effluent is discharged to the natural environment. This dramatic decrease is accomplished by the aerobic biological process of nitrification, in which ammonia is oxidized to nitrate Biological denitrification is an anoxic biological process in which nitrate (NO₃-) is reduced to nitrogen gas (N₂). Denitrification can increase the alkalinity in activated sludge aeration basins and decrease the concentration of filamentous organisms. The staff at the City of Austin Water Utility decided to implement a denitrification system at Walnut Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant to control filamentous organisms and increase the alkalinity within the aeration basins. The denitrification configuration that the staff implemented was unconventional because no structural changes were made to the aeration basins to encourage denitrification. However, the system functioned well and allowed operators to turn off one of the two air blowers, which saves the plant a significant amount of energy. The current operation has occasional problems, where the alkalinity in the aeration basin decreases or the effluent ammonia increases. When the alkalinity decreases to the point where the pH drops to near 6.0, operators are forced to add chemicals to increase the alkalinity. When the effluent ammonia increases to near the permitted concentration (2.0 mg NH₃-N/L),operators are forced to turn back on the second blower which eliminates the anoxic zone. These problems occur most often during the winter, when the wastewater is the coldest. The wastewater temperature at Walnut Creek varies from a high of 30°C during the summer to a low of 18°C during the winter. The goal of this research was the identification of ways to make the operation more robust which would prevent the need for chemical addition and minimize the use of the second blower. Laboratory-scale reactors were operated to assess possible improvements that could be made to the operation and configuration of the denitrification system at Walnut Creek. The data observed in the laboratory scale experiments showed that the population of denitrifying bacteria limits denitrification and is especially important during the winter. Increasing the solids retention time to 20 days appeared to be the best way to increase the population of denitrifying bacteria and improve denitrification. Improvements can also be made by increasing the volume of the anoxic zone. Increasing the volume of wastewater and biomass recycled will most likely not benefit denitrification until other improvements have been made. Recommendations to the City of Austin Water Utility include the following: 1) increase the solids retention time at Walnut Creek, 2) Increase the volume of the anoxic zone, 3) Separate the anoxic zone from the aerobic section of each aeration basin, 4) During the winter, operate the flow equalization basins to reduce the dissolved oxygen entering the anoxic zone, 5) Continually mix some of the effluent from the aeration basins with the primary effluent in the flow equalization basins.Item The Pecan Street Project : developing the electric utility system of the future(2009-08) Smith, Christopher Alan; Eaton, David J.; Webber, Michael E., 1971-The Pecan Street Project (PSP) is a public-private initiative that seeks to establish the City of Austin and its electric utility, Austin Energy (AE), as leaders in developing the electric utility system of the future and clean energy economy. The four main components of the project are to: 1) develop a local, public-private consortium dedicated to research and development of clean energy technologies and distributed power generation; 2) open the city’s electric grid to act as a lab to test emerging clean energy technologies; 3) develop a new business model to ensure AE’s continued profitability; and 4) show the world how the new business and systems model can work. This report provides a case study of PSP and describes an analytical approach for evaluating projects, programs, and policies proposed by PSP working groups to develop a cleaner, more efficient electric system. This report includes a history of the project, discusses opportunities and challenges identified by PSP, and evaluates the potential economic, environmental, system, and other impacts of different project ideas through a technical analysis. This report concludes with a series of recommendations to PSP and identifies policy implications for the City of Austin, AE, other policymakers, and other electric utilities.