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. 

More than a century ago, the founders of the Salt River Project (SRP) had a vision to build a dam and a reservoir that would allow people to thrive in the harsh desert of central Arizona. SRP has followed that original vision by expanding its system from a single dam—Theodore Roosevelt Dam—to a system made up of seven dams and reservoirs with a total storage capacity of more than 4 million acre-feet. 

The Salt River Project (SRP) is a major utility that provides both electrical power and water to more than 2 million people in the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan region. SRP manages 131 miles of Bureau of Reclamation– owned canals and more than 1,000 miles of laterals. With such a large customer base in a region susceptible to drought, SRP puts significant effort into conservation, efficiency, and maintaining its storage and delivery infrastructure for the future. In this interview, Dave Roberts, SRP associate general manager and chief water resources executive, tells Municipal Water Leader about SRP’s contributions to the Colorado River basin's Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) and its work to increase its…

Mike Heitmann is the chief executive officer and Mark Kelly is the director of business development for Garney Construction, a Kansas City, MO based company that is engaged in water and wastewater construction projects for public, private, industrial and federal clients throughout the United States.  The company is entirely owned by its 1,550 employees and today has annual revenue of $1.1 billion.  

Lawrence is a city of around 102,000people in the northeastern corner of Kansas and is the home of the University of Kansas. The city’s water, wastewater, and storm water utilities serve the city and several outlying regions. Like many municipalities, Lawrence is working to install smart, automated meters. It is also working to reduce unwanted infiltration and inflows into older clay sewer pipes and addressing debris and nutrients in the source water for its reservoirs. In this interview, MikeLawless, the deputy director of the City of Lawrence’s Municipal Services and Operations Department (MSO), gives Municipal Water Leader a comprehensive look at the department’s top issues and current work.

Today, everyone knows that individuals can be tested for current COVID‑19 infections or for the presence of antibodies that suggest a past infection. What fewer people may realize is that wastewater can be tested for residual genetic material that signals that SARS-CoV-2, commonly known as the coronavirus that causes COVID‑19, is present within a community. This broad snapshot of coronavirus presence within a community can provide an invaluable early warning of an outbreak to public health officials. One institution that is helping to advance research into this method of detection is The Water Research Foundation (WRF). In addition to funding research itself, it has helped to facilitate information interchange among…

The Water Tower is a new water innovation center headquartered in Buford, Georgia. Its campus, expected to be completed in 2022, will include laboratories, a field training center, and access to real effluent and reuse water for research purposes. However, The Water Tower is already moving forward with programming in four key areas: applied research, technology innovation, community engagement, and workforce development. In this interview, Kristan VandenHeuvel, The Water Tower’s strategic director of research and engagement, tells Municipal Water Leader about the center’s vision of being a water hub for the entire Southeast and how it is already making that a reality. 

With a rated treatment capacity of 64 million gallons a day (MGD), the McAlpine Creek Wastewater Management Facility is the largest wastewater treatment facility operated by Charlotte Water (CLTWater). In 2018, CLTWater began a reliability and process improvements project that is being implemented via the progressive design-build project delivery method and involves the rehabilitation of 28 aeration basins and 16 secondary clarifiers and the replacement of the plant’s three blower buildings. The secondary clarifiers range from 95 to 150 feet in diameter, with the oldest clarifiers being nearly 60 years old. 

The Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (BPU) provides potable retail and wholesale water service to around 55,000 people in Kansas City, Kansas, and neighboring areas. It draws its water from horizontal collector wells in the aquifer below the Missouri River, treats it, and delivers it to customers via around 1,000 miles of water mains. In this interview, James Epp, the BPU’s executive director of water operations, and Steve Green, its director of water distribution, talk to Municipal Water Leader about operating in the age of COVID-19 and the utility’s plans for the future.