The municipal government of the city of Auckland, New Zealand, has created a program to easily present up-to-date information on water quality and hazards at local beaches to the public. The Safeswim program uses regular testing, real-time data on the performance of wastewater and storm water infrastructure, and data modeling to generate its recommendations. Meanwhile, Auckland Council and its water utility are 3 years into a 10‑year infrastructure program to reduce the occurrence of wastewater overflows. In this interview, Safeswim Program Manager Nick Vigar tells Municipal Water Leader about how the program functions and the benefits it brings Aucklanders. 

Many of the nation’s large, federally owned hydropower dams are aging and in need of repairs, which are often funded by agencies like the Bureau of Reclamation. However, such funding streams are often not open to smaller, state-regulated private and municipal dams. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is helping address this gap through its National Dam Safety Program (NDSP), which provides pass-through grants to states, which in turn award the money to subrecipients who sponsor rehabilitation projects. In this interview, James Demby, the senior technical and policy adviser on dam safety issues and program manager for the NDSP, tells Municipal Water Leader about the projects that the program funds…

South Platte Renew (SPR) is a regional wastewater facility serving approximately 300,000 people in and around the cities of Littleton and Englewood, Colorado. As part of its energy optimization activities, it recently installed a gas recovery facility that allows it to capture the methane that is created as part of the wastewater treatment process, purify it, and sell it to Xcel Energy. In addition to the money it gets from Xcel, this earns SPR significant credit from federal and state renewable fuel standard programs. In this interview, SPR Director Pieter Van Ry tells Municipal Water Leader about the genesis of the program and his advice for other utilities that are…

NuSTREEM is an innovative small-hydropower-unit manufacturer based in Connecticut. Its low-head NuTURBINE can be inserted into existing municipal water systems to harvest the energy latent in the water flowing through a facility and convert it into electricity. In this interview, Kathy Bielert, NuSTREEM’s technical sales manager, tells Municipal Water Leader about the idea behind the company’s technology and why it should be of interest to all municipal water managers. 

Pat Mulroy is a legendary figure on the Colorado River. The former general manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water District (LVVWD) and of the Southern Nevada Water Agency (SNWA), she also served as the lead negotiator for the State of Nevada on the Colorado River. Today, she runs her own consulting firm and is a senior fellow at the law school of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In this interview, Ms. Mulroy tells Municipal Water Leader about her decades of experience and accomplishments and discusses the challenges that remain to be solved in the Colorado basin. 

Over the past few years, San Diego International Airport has implemented several water reuse and conservation programs that are saving potable water, reducing runoff, and protecting the environment. These projects have been recognized with several Environmental Excellence Awards from the Industrial Environmental Association. In this interview, Richard Gilb, one of the airport’s managers for environmental affairs, tells Municipal Water Leader about the details of its ambitious projects. 

Freese and Nichols is a Texas-headquartered consulting engineering firm with operations around the nation. It was founded in 1894 and has been working with some clients, including the City of Fort Worth, since that year. Its experience in the wastewater services market spans a century as well. In this interview, David Jackson, the treatment practice leader and group manager for Freese and Nichols’s North Texas water and wastewater treatment group, tells Municipal Water Leader about how that wastewater practice has developed in recent decades, highlights important recent projects, and explains the importance of Freese and Nichols’s ethic of client service. 

Providing a reliable and affordable source of water in the desert has never been an easy task. Not only does it require careful planning and solid infrastructure, it requires partnerships.