DWU's budget is completely funded through the rates charged for water and wastewater services provided to customers.
Primary authority and rules for the department are listed in Chapter 49 Archived 2006-10-04 at the Wayback Machine of the Dallas City Code.
It is managed by a director and five assistant directors for the five primary functional areas: Business Operations provides accounting, financial, and budget support to the Water Utilities Department; In addition, this program provides for the management of wholesale water and wastewater services to other governmental entities within the utility's service area.
There are five general types of relationships: Wholesale customers to DWU include the communities of Addison, Carrollton, Cedar Hill, Cockrell Hill, The Colony, Coppell, Denton, DeSoto, Duncanville, Farmers Branch, Flower Mound, Glenn Heights, Grand Prairie, Grapevine, Highland Park, Hutchings, Irving, Lancaster, Lewisville, Mesquite, Ovilla, Red Oak, Richardson, Seagoville, University Park, and Wilmer, as well as Dallas County WCID #6, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Ellis County WCID #1, and the Upper Trinity Regional Water District.
In 2001, the Dallas City Council took conservation efforts to another level by adopting an irrigation ordinance which included time-of-day watering restrictions.
In April 2012, the Council voted to adopt maximum twice-weekly watering, which allows outdoor irrigation only twice per week according to a schedule based on even/odd street address numbers.
The ordinance and other measures have reduced gallons per capita per day in Dallas by 26% since 2001 resulting in: DWU has over 300,000 meters in its system.
As of June 2003, DWU provided retail water service to just over 1.2 million people within the Dallas city limits.
The major distribution system facilities include 28 pump stations (including the high service pump stations at the three water treatment plants), 11 ground storage reservoirs, 9 elevated tanks, and 78 vault structures separate from the major facilities, in addition to over 4,600 miles (7,400 km) of distribution and transmission main.
In 1913 the Texas legislature passed an anti-pollution law that directed all cities with populations greater than 50,000 to cease discharging untreated wastewater into streams.
In January 1917 Dallas completed a 6 million US gallons (23,000 m3) per day wastewater treatment plant, the Central WWTP, to comply with this law.
Key activities of this program include: The city operates two wastewater sewage treatment plants, Central and Southside.
Most prominently, after the introduction of Clean Water Act, activated sludge was included to the treatment process along with trickling filters.
DWU Central plant provides Type II reuse water to a city park and two city-owned golf courses.
DWU Central Plant currently has six (6) “A”, seven (7)”B”, 14 “C”, and five (5) “D” Texas Commission on Environmental Quality TCEQ Certified operators on staff.
Pretreatment and Laboratory Services (PALS) administers local, state, and federal regulations to control pollutants discharged from commercial and industrial users (IUs) within the city of Dallas which may pass through or interfere with the city's Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW).
The city's POTW consists of two wastewater treatment plants treating up to 260 million US gallons (980,000 m3) per day, fourteen pump stations, and over 4,100 miles (6,600 km) of sanitary sewer collection pipelines.
Examples of such pollutants include heavy metals, cyanides, toxic organics, and acidic or basic wastes from industrial operations.
Wastewater from restaurants and other food service industries are often more problematic due to the prevalence of conventional pollutants such as grease, organic matter and solids.
The Pretreatment Program protects the treatment process and keeps costs down by working with local businesses to minimize pollutant discharges.
DWU's goal is to continually, evaluate, upgrade and replace its water and wastewater assets in order to make both systems operate efficiently.
Relocations is a section within Engineering Services whose primary function is the work with Texas Department of Transportation, Dallas County, the Army Corps of Engineers, City of Dallas Public Works & Transportation in a joint effort to replace designated pipes in advance of pavement renewal or other projects that impact the DWU water or wastewater pipeline systems.