By Kris Polly

This year, Mark Krause is retiring after nearly 30 years of service to Desert Water Agency (DWA), 8 of them as its general manager. Steady, unflappable, highly competent, and always seeking to fully understand an issue or a situation, Mr. Krause is a true engineer and critical thinker who always considers all the information and everyone’s input before making a decision. I’m pleased to have the chance to celebrate Mr. Krause and his many accomplishments at DWA with this month’s cover story, in which he discusses the importance of water recycling and long-term water supply planning and shares his advice for other general managers.

Next, we speak with the general manager of another impressive Southern California water utility, Mauricio Guardado of United Water Conservation District. Mr. Guardado tells us about how United is securing additional water supplies, recharging groundwater basins, improving infrastructure, and more—all with the goal of becoming not just drought tolerant, but drought resistant.

Rezatec uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to help monitor and manage critical infrastructure, including dams and buried pipelines. By feeding its algorithms information on a pipeline’s location, size, type, and material and training them on historic failure data, Rezatec can help determine risk and predict failure. Head of Product Camilla Braithwaite explains.

US Desalination is seeking to promote major desalination projects across the nation to create a drought-proof water supply for industrial uses, particularly the production of hydrogen. Managing Partner Sean Strawbridge, who in his former position as the CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi oversaw the successful obtention of a record-breaking seawater desalination permit, tells us about the company’s ambitions.

McCarthy Building Companies is the oldest privately held national construction company in the United States, and its water team focuses on the collaborative delivery of large, complex water and wastewater projects. We speak with Sarah Espinosa, a design integration manager, and Chad Wolfe, a senior project director, about several recent water projects.

StormTrap’s TrashTrap netting systems capture trash and floatables from storm water and wastewater systems and can be customized for deployment in numerous configurations and locations, including in line, at an outfall, or floating in a water body. Water Quality Solutions Specialist Zack Delgrosso tells us more.

The mission of this magazine is to highlight the leaders in the municipal water industry, and Mark Krause fits that profile perfectly. While his direct leadership in Southern California water will be missed, his effective management will continue through the many people he has mentored, and his accomplishments will not be forgotten.

Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Municipal Water Leader magazine and the president and CEO of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He can be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.