Report forecasts long-term growth for U.S. water market, despite infrastructure spending cuts
According to Water Market USA, an independent assessment published by Global Water Intelligence, America's failing water and wastewater sector looks set to decline further in 2009, as capital expenditure on crucial infrastructure projects is cut back by 12.9%. Restraints on borrowing, shrinking tax bases and a drop in capital contributions from property developers have derailed investment plans, the report suggests.
On the brighter side, much stronger growth is in store in the long term as scarcity, the need for environmental protection and repair of decaying networks force the pace of investment. Water Market USA suggests capital expenditure will grow from $25.2 billion in 2009 to $49.7 billion in 2016.
For more information, visit www.globalwaterintl.com.
PennWell, CS Week extend cross marketing alliance
PennWell Corp. and CS Week have extended a crossmarketing agreement, which includes several of PennWell's leading utility publications, events, on-line publications and electronic newsletters, including WaterWorld, Water Utility Management and DistribuTECH Conference and Exhibition. CS Week, a premiere utility industry educational venue, comprises CS Week Executive Summit, CS Week College, CS Week Synergy Groups and the annual conference focused on meter-to-cash workshops and an industry exhibit hall.
CS Week's mission is to plan and deliver professional, unbiased, educational opportunities for the electric, gas and water/wastewater utilities, cooperatives and municipalities throughout North America and the world.
CS Week Conference, now in its 33rd year, will take place May 18-22, 2009, at the Gaylord National on the Potomac in Washington, DC.
MWH to upgrade Tallahassee's wastewater treatment capabilities
MWH has signed two contracts totaling $220M to provide construction management-at-risk services to upgrade wastewater treatment facilities in Tallahassee, FL. Owned and operated by the City of Tallahassee, the Thomas P. Smith Wastewater Reclamation Facility and the Lake Bradford Road Wastewater Treatment Facility serve more than 200,000 of Leon County's 275,000 residents. Construction on both projects is scheduled to begin in February 2009.
SFWMD signs enterprise license agreement with ESRI
Southwest Florida Water Management District has signed an enterprise license agreement (ELA) with ESRI to support the rapid expansion of an accessible geographic information system (GIS). The agreement also supports the technological advancement of two key information systems built on ArcGIS Server.
The district collects and stores massive amounts of data, which has historically been managed in separate mainframe and GIS systems. These systems are being migrated to a GIS-based solution that combines ArcGIS Server, document management, and workflow capabilities to enable rapid access to district data including geospatial and field collection data and scientific information. The ELA allows the growth of the system using multiple servers and provides improved support for business continuity.
Black & Veatch expands credit, capital and liquidity risk management service
Enterprise Management Solutions (EMS), the management consulting division of Black & Veatch, has expanded its Enterprise Risk Management service to offer clients the capability to assess and manage corporate financial liquidity and capital adequacy.
The service offering: Credit, Capital and Liquidity Risk Management helps energy and water clients build predictive and preventive approaches for complete and continuous measurement, monitoring and governance of company liquidity, capital and credit exposures. The service provides: a balanced approach uniquely structured for each client's value chain; prioritized solutions to address immediate, short-term and long-term issues; meaningful and actionable risk metrics; and root cause analysis.
EPA publishes case study on water security, preparedness
EPA has published the Seattle-King County, Washington Community Case Study Report called Security and Preparedness Practices: A Collaborative Approach to Water Sector Resiliency, which is intended to encourage and enhance security-related practices at drinking water and wastewater utilities across the country and raise awareness of water preparedness issues among local and state emergency management agencies, elected leaders, and leaders of other critical infrastructure sectors.
The pilot report describes the community case study methodology and compiles information on 23 existing water sector utility practices already being implemented in Seattle-King County, which can serve as examples to other communities and water sector utilities.
For more information, visit www.epa.gov.
Partnership to help municipalities maximize efficiency of asset ownership, operation
VUEWorks Inc. and Springbrook Software have formed a technology partnership to help local government agencies increase efficiency and accountability by linking their financial, asset management and GIS systems.
The two companies are integrating VUEWorks' GIS-enabled asset and work order management solution with Springbrook's accounting and CIS software, and will develop joint solutions that allow organizations to track the true cost of owning and operating individual assets.
The VUEWorks-Springbrook integration is already benefiting a mutual beta customer, Northstar CSD, a California Special District located near Truckee, CA.
Sensus creates new business unit
Sensus Metering Systems has created the Conservation Solutions business unit, renaming its AMI/Electric business unit.
“We changed the name to Conservation Solutions to reflect our commitment to providing electric, water and gas utilities with the technologies and tools to enable them and consumers to proactively monitor and manage our natural resources,” said Peter Mainz, Chief Executive Officer and President of Sensus. “We believe we are uniquely positioned to lead our industry in these efforts. In addition, the new name acknowledges the broad and rapidly expanding scope of this business.”
The Conservation Solutions business unit is led by Bill Yeates, Executive Vice President, and includes all Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Advanced Meter Reading (AMR) technology solutions for electricity, water and gas.
“Sensus will continue to support its customers and the industry through development and deployment of technologies including AMI, smart meters and other smart grid solutions,” said Yeates. “These technologies will enable natural resource conservation efforts, carbon footprint reduction and extend the useful lives of utility capital equipment.”
Cost estimating manual available for water treatment facilities
Research and Markets has added John Wiley and Sons Ltd's new report “Cost Estimating Manual for Water Treatment Facilities” to their offering.
The manual offers tested-and-proven techniques to guide engineers, planners, and contractors through the process of estimating the cost of building water treatment facilities. Based on more than eighty years of the two authors' collective experience, the manual identifies forty-three treatment processes, nine types of water treatment plants, plus five additional types of advanced water treatment plants. The authors demonstrate how to calculate costs for each element, accounting for needed mark-ups and allowances in order to arrive at the total plant construction cost.
For more information, visit www.researchandmarkets.com.
Water district to standardize, automate core business processes
The Western Municipal Water District (Riverside, CA) has licensed a suite of Lawson applications to help create a single, consolidated business system and automate administrative processes.
Western sought to upgrade from its legacy applications to a modern business system that would be easy to learn and use. Once implemented, the Lawson system, which includes the Lawson Human Resource Management Suite and the Lawson S3 Enterprise Financial Management, Supply Chain Management, and Enterprise Performance Management Suites, will help Western streamline processing of its accounts payable and accounts receivable transactions and enhance its reporting capabilities.
City to modernize meter reading process
The City of Duluth, the largest municipal utility in Minnesota, has signed a contract for deployment of Itron's mobile automated meter reading (AMR) system to over 53,000 water and gas meters. The solution will not only reduce the costly process of reading its meters, but also provide the utility with better business data and improved customer service tools.
Duluth expects the system to reduce its number of monthly re-reads, minimize in-the-field high/low readings, and decrease move-in and -out reads. This is in turn expected to lessen application work orders and improve customer service and revenue protection.
