United Water to upgrade Haworth treatment plant

• Ground-breaking ceremony to mark start of $100M+ investment for residents

HARRINGTON PARK, NJ, Nov. 7, 2007 -- United Water today begins important renovations of its Haworth Water Treatment Plant to meet increasing demand for quality drinking water and a safe environment. United Water will have a ground-breaking ceremony to give local, state, various officials and agencies an overview of the upgrade plan.

The purpose of the upgrades is to satisfy three main objectives: regulatory compliance related to drinking water quality, regulatory compliance related to process waste discharge to the Oradell Reservoir, and operational constraints related to the age of the existing ozonation system.

"United Water continues to meet and surpass all water quality standards but we know we have to do more to meet stricter regulations in the future. Delivering superior water quality is costly but the overall upgrades will benefit the customer, the environment and United Water," said Robert Iacullo, Chief Operating Officer of United Water. "As technology advances we have to make continuous upgrades to ensure that we are providing our customers with the best product available."

A preliminary estimate, based on the conceptual scope and project framework, is in the range of $110 million to $130 million. This does not including costs incurred to-date for planning, testing, and project development activities.

According to Iacullo, the upgrades will serve to improve water quality, allow for a more efficient operation, and meet current and pending drinking water regulations. The new treatment process is outlined on the boards in more detail; however, the major elements of the project include the following:

• A New Ozone System -- The existing ozone system, placed in service in the late 80s, was the first generation of this technology, while state of the art at the time, it is now past its prime. This new ozone system is needed to pretreat the water to allow for effective removal of particles and unwanted tastes and odors in the water. The new system will be much more efficient, greatly reducing the amount of energy needed for operation.

• Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) -- This new and innovative technology is a clarification process and is the main element of the Haworth Upgrade. In basic terms it is a pretreatment stage prior to filtration, where it will remove over 90% of the particles and algae from the source water. The new DAF process is an example of state of the art technology for water treatment and this facility will be the largest of its kind in the US.

This technology allows for superior performance under peak operating conditions and allows construction to be contained within the usable area we have available here at the site without disturbing wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas.

• Chlorine Contact Tanks -- Upon completion of the new ozone and DAF systems, the existing process tanks will be retrofitted as new chlorine contact tanks to serve as a disinfection process.

This will be a great improvement over the existing process where chlorine is applied to the water as it enters the filters. The new improvements will allow for a reduction in the amount of chlorine used, without any reduction in disinfection performance and will ultimately reduce any byproducts formed.

• Residuals Handling -- New treatment processes will be provided to handle the residuals generated from both the filter backwash operation and the new DAF operation. These improvements will allow for the elimination of a current permitted discharge to the Oradell Reservoir. The planned residuals handling improvements will treat this volume of water and recycle it back to the head of the plant where it will re-enter the treatment process.

The Haworth Water Treatment Plant Upgrade project was officially launched on June 1st of this year with engineering and permitting activities. The next major project milestone is for the new Ozone, DAF, and Residuals facilities to be in-service by the spring of 2009. The remaining improvements will be constructed through mid-2010 when the project will be complete.

United Water New Jersey provides water service to more than 750,000 residents in Bergen and Hudson counties in New Jersey. Its parent company, United Water, provides water and wastewater services to 7.7 million people in the United States. Founded in 1869, United Water is a subsidiary of the Suez Environment division of the Suez Group.

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