San Jose Water Company has announced plans to implement Orcom Solutions' Enterprise Customer Information System (E-CIS) to serve the utility's 220,000 customers in Silicon Valley.
SJW Corp., San Jose Water Company's parent company, recently announced its intention to merge with American Water Works Company, the largest investor-owned water supply company in the U.S. and an Orcom E-CIS client. American Water Works operations serve more than 3 million customers nationwide.
Richard Roth, President and CEO of SJW, said, "Orcom's E-CIS is a good, stable computer system that will let us do new things. We have to keep moving forward and developing new business. E-CIS is a vital component of our strategy for the future."
According to Dana Drysdale, San Jose's Vice President of Information Systems, the system will satisfy San Jose Water Company's goals in several areas: improved group billing capabilities, enhanced customer communications including the ability to customize delinquency communications, and the ability to route work to specialized maintenance crews for increased efficiency. He added that the system's customer/account/ premise/service architecture creates a natural link between the customer/account focus so prevalent in the electronic commerce world of Silicon Valley and the premise/service orientation of a utility.
Company Wins Water Main Contract
Allan A. Myers, Inc. has been awarded an $8 million contract by the Winchester Department of Public Utilities to install 45,000 linear feet of 30-in., ductile iron, potable water transmission main. It will replace existing 24-in., cast iron main in the Winchester/Frederick County, VA, area.
The job, now under way, is the first of a two phase project to replace 15 miles of water transmission main to improve water distribution for more than 9,400 residential and commercial accounts served by the Percy D. Miller water treatment plant near Middletown, VA. The plant, which draws its raw water from the nearby North Fork of the Shenandoah River, has a rated capacity of 10 mgd.
The first phase of the construction project undertaken by Myers began in January and is scheduled for completion by May 2001. It includes three borings under routes 1-66, 1-81 and VA State Road 11 near Winchester.
This is the second major Virginia construction contract awarded this year to Allan A. Myers, a Pennsylvania contractor. In July, the American Infrastructure (AI) partner company received a $6.5 million contract from Henrico County to install more than 16,000 linear feet of 42-in. and 54-in. ductile iron, raw water transmission main, 9,000 linear feet of potable water main and related facilities east of Richmond. The project is one of three pipeline segments servicing a new 55 mgd county water treatment plant currently under construction.
Expansion Will Extend City's Water Resources
The city of Aurora, Colo., has begun construction on a major expansion to its water reclamation system. The project is an important part of the city's water resource plan, and provides a means of extending available water resources.
The new $15 million system will be capable of producing 5 mgd to irrigate parks, golf courses and greenbelts. Also, under consideration for the future is an even larger system that includes reservoirs to store reclaimed water produced during non-irrigation seasons for later use.
Richard P. Arber Associates, a professional consulting engineering firm, led the design team for the project and is overseeing the construction. The firm specializes in planning, design, and construction services for water and wastewater systems throughout the western United States.
Aurora has been reusing water for almost 20 years at Aurora Hills Golf Course. More than 120 million gallons of recycled water is used annually for irrigation.