Under the state's Growth Management Act  (Municipal Research and Services Center), local jurisdictions are required to plan essential public facilities such as wastewater treatment to meet their population growth needs. King County is in turn legally required to build wastewater treatment capacity for the jurisdictions and agencies it serves in the central Puget Sound region.

To ensure planning decisions reflect the interest of the regional ratepayers, who ultimately pay for these investments, King County carefully reviews local comprehensive plans and compares growth projections to census data and population forecasts prepared by the Puget Sound Regional Council . The county also looks at its own wastewater flow and monitoring data, and further truth-tests projections by running the data through sophisticated system models to determine where future system capacity might be needed. King County's modeling data has historically proved highly accurate and reliable.

The 34 local sewer agencies that pay King County for safe, environmentally responsible sewage treatment are represented by the Metropolitan Water Pollution Abatement Advisory Committee, or MWPAAC (pronounced "Mew-Pack").

MWPAAC members help ensure we're making cost-effective decisions based on legitimate, emerging needs by working with the county to develop criteria to prioritize and plan projects.

Once project needs are identified, the county develops plans that it shares with MWPAAC's engineering subcommittee and other stakeholders, which might include local elected officials and jurisdiction staff, business leaders, permitting agencies and community members.

The King County Council and County Executive review the comprehensive plans, and only after the council votes its approval do plans for new projects move forward.

King County Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) manages capital projects based on the international standards of the Project Management Institute (PMI) as described in part in the publication titled A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), Third Edition. These standards provide guidance through the five phases of a project: planning, preliminary design, final design, implementation and closeout.

Project Life Cycle for a King County WTD capital project