highlighted projects (scroll down)
All communities and projects are unique and require innovative funding and financing solutions. However, a few come to mind due to the longstanding community / consultant relationship, project challenges / solutions and scope of the project.
King County, WA
Ms. Lindsey began her consulting career in 1990 with Brown and Caldwell Consultants doing project coordination and management on the King County Dept. of Metropolitan Services (now Department of Natural Resources and Parks) multi-year Brick Sewer Rehabilitation Project. The initial project led to over 30 years of providing consulting service to the King County Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) as a Financial Analyst on projects including; the Regional Wastewater Services Financing Plan and Rate Structure Evaluation, Annual Facilities Inspection and Financial Audit, Bond Engineers Report and Parity Certificate Evaluation (for over $100 million in municipal bonds), Regional Wastewater Services Plan of Operations and Rates Benchmarking Study and the Sewer Reclamation Rate Evaluation Pilot Study and Comprehensive Financial Plan. Much of the early project planning provided is being implemented or built on today. Currently, Lindsey Consulting is helping the County with its Nitrogen Removal project funding and economic justice considerations. She is a certified Small Contractor and Supplier (SCS) for King County.
City of Blaine, WA
Between 2000-2010, the City of Blaine was faced a situation that shutdown construction of its wastewater treatment plant (WTP) expansion, when sensitive archaeological remains belonging to the Lummi First Nations were discovered on the site. Moving forward with the required project would include engineering, legal, water quality, tribal and funding conditions resulting in a $34 million WTP expansions cost (up from $5 million for the stopped project) for a new site. After review of 14 different sites, the preferred WTP site needed to be aesthetically integrated into the heart of a City waterfront park. The WTP process produces Class A reclaimed water since the WTP discharges into an impaired water body and the City looked forward to providing reclaimed water for irrigation and other uses. However, the preferred alternative produced residential sewer rates at well above state and federal financial hardship levels, for the small town of only 5,000 residents. The City management was pro-active in hosting regular project meetings with funding agencies, consultants, public officials, the Tribe and stakeholders, during the planning and construction phases. Lindsey Consulting was hired during 2006-2010 to identify funding sources, review rate impacts, develop a financing plan and write funding applications for multiple agencies. Jane Lindsey was able to help the City to identify and successfully secure multiple grants and low interest government loans totaling over $30 million. The low-cost funding enabled the City to avoid issuing more costly bonds that would have raised utility rates to unaffordable levels. Successful state and federal funding sources included WA Dept. of Ecology, USDA Rural Development and the WA Dept. of Commerce . The project was ranked #1 for funding from Ecology and the application that Lindsey Consulting developed was distributed at its future Water Quality Funding application workshops as its best example of an application the agency had received, The collaboration between consultants, City staff. funding agencies and Stakeholders was exceptional on this project. The award winning project was successfully built and operational in 2010.
City of Quincy, WA
Since 2012, Jane Lindsey has advised the City of Quincy on financial planning and funding for its water, industrial and domestic sewer and/or reuse systems capital improvement programs (CIP) and on-going operations. The projects have many stakeholders and project participants including the Port of Quincy, regulators, large customers and funding agencies. The disadvantaged small rural City originally hired Lindsey Consulting to assist with developing a funding strategy to plan, design and construct a new large-scale, national award-winning water reuse/recycling facility (1Water) costing over $150 million. The 1Water project is required to serve multiple goals including providing an alternative long term water supply, alleviating regulatory concerns and discharge challenges, fostering economic growth and sustainability for existing customers and providing infrastructure to attract new industries to the area. Around 2009, Microsoft began planning and building early phases of its largest billion dollar global data center network in the small City of Quincy (8,000 residents). Providing large volumes of seasonal cooling water supply in a semi-arid, land locked region with dwindling water resources, and implementing an environmentally acceptable method to dispose of treated discharges under changing regulatory conditions, has been an ongoing engineering and financial challenge for the City. Quincy is a small, low to moderate income community and the cost of such a facility would have created an enormous burden on the local businesses and residents. The City set out on a multi-year effort to secure grant and low cost loan funding and, in collaboration with Lindsey Consulting and the project team, has been successful in securing over $93 million in 1Water project funding to date. The City started producing recycled water in 2019 and continues to work with Lindsey Consulting and Stakeholders to find innovative ways to meet its goals, secure funding and address changing project needs. One of the most successful aspects of the project was that the City did not have to raise existing industrial, commercial or residential rates, to build the reuse utility. With the complexity of the project and changing customers needs, the City has had to up-front fund (and potentially refund) costs through reuse customer rates and contributions. Fortunately, the City has been active in retaining existing industry and attracting new customers to the area, to share the costs of providing recycled water, without burdening the local residents. The City is also undertaking a substantial water and sewer CIP, and Ms. Lindsey is developing an on-going strategy to secure low-cost grant and loan funding, by identifying funding resources available, strategic planning and completing applications, to reduce the customer cost impact of emerging regulations and expanding service needs. In the first 2 months of working with the City on funding its water and sewer CIP, Lindsey Consulting produced an application that secured a $7 million grant/loan combination from Ecology, for a wastewater project that is currently underway. Lindsey Consulting has identified multiple resources for the City to pursue including the US Bureau of Reclamation, WA Departments of Ecology and Health, WA Public Works Board and County grants.