Stewart's Big-Picture Planning Helps City Waters Flow to Megasite

When was the last time you thought about the water flowing from the faucet as you brushed your teeth? And when have you last considered the final destination of the water that cleaned your clothes in the washing machine?

Unless there's a problem, many people probably don't reflect on these things, but Jana Stewart of the City's Water Resources Department thinks about them all the time.

"I think about it every day," Stewart said. "And I think about it even when I'm not at work!"

Part of the reason Greensboro residents may not give water service a second thought is because of the work of Stewart and her colleagues. As manager of the department's engineering division, she oversees 22 employees mostly concerned with providing water and sewer services to more than 109,000 customers who daily consume 35 million gallons of water. Whether it's a developer seeking service for new construction or a City neighborhood in need of new water infrastructure, Stewart and her team help make it happen.

"What I really love doing the most is the big-picture planning," Stewart said. "We have so much capacity in the system and we have lines only in certain locations. And so when we think about how the City of Greensboro wants to grow, we need to think about how we can give them the basic functions of life, which include water and sewer."

After joining the City in 2010 as a stormwater utility design engineer, Stewart stepped away in 2013 to have her family's second child. The NC State University graduate rejoined the department in 2017 as the asset management and geographic information system supervisor, a post she says "fit her to a tee." Her experience in these roles prepared her ascent into the engineering manager's position in 2021. She took over just in time to take on what she calls a "one-of-a-kind" project - delivering water and sewer service to the Toyota Battery Manufacturing Plant at the Guilford-Randolph Megasite.

The City committed to providing water and sewer service to the megasite in 2014 and made some preliminary preparations, but the work ramped up seven years later when Toyota announced plans to build an electric-vehicle battery plant at the site. It's a good thing Stewart enjoys big-picture planning because Water Resources leadership tapped her to represent the City in discussions with Toyota, the North Carolina Department of Transportation, and other stakeholders to deliver 4.5 million gallons of water daily to a facility 16 miles away.

"It was a lot of water and a lot of sewer that we had to get to Toyota," Stewart said. "They're not completely in our backyard, which made it challenging to service them.

"It was multiple phases and it took place over multiple years. And then we had to really light a fire underneath all of our plans so that we could make sure we got the project done on time for Toyota."

Part of the quick-moving plans included the construction of a 750,000-gallon elevated water storage tank adjacent to the megasite property just south of the Guilford-Randolph county line. The tank stands 180 feet in the air. It's a 48-foot bowl made of steel plates that sits atop a 132-foot concrete column. Stewart brought together the project engineer and contractor for the construction, which helped save valuable time.

While the project came together and delivered water and sewer service to the site less than two years after Toyota's announcement, Stewart says it wasn't without complications.

"There were definitely a lot of challenges with the number of stakeholders that we had involved and the knowledge base of all those stakeholders with water and sewer," Stewart said. "Sometimes we would request things, but they would not get done because they didn't understand the priority."

Stewart and her colleagues worked hard to overcome such obstacles and as of last October, Toyota and the megasite had functioning City water and sewer service.

Construction is well underway at the massive 161-acre site as Toyota looks to start production in 2025. The company has invested $13.9 billion into its first battery plant in North America, which will ultimately employ more than 5,000 workers.

"It's been a successful project," she said. "We have been able to deliver water and sewer as promised to the megasite. It's very rewarding to know that we've been able to get all the phases completed."

With the megasite project largely complete, Stewart may resume her normal routine of reviewing and planning water/sewer infrastructure and projects, assisting her team, and thinking about water and sewers, so we don't have to.

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