Whenever I am stuck with a seemingly unsolvable problem, I like to bring someone else in to view it from a different angle. Oftentimes, this is all I need — to have someone else offer an outside perspective, and bam! Problem solved. The benefits we can realize from working together are too great to discount, yet sometimes we become so wrapped up in our daily lives that we forget a helping hand might simply be a phone call or a walk down the hallway.
When members of the water industry collaborate with colleagues, city governments, or citizens in their communities, the advantages are myriad. In our lead feature this month, Prior Lake, Minn., Mayor Kurt Brigs writes about the city’s collaboration with the neighboring Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community to design and construct a joint water treatment plant. While the city had partnered with the tribe on other initiatives in the past, including infrastructure and mutual aid agreements, nothing came close to the size, magnitude or permanence of a water treatment facility.
As Mayor Briggs says, “Providing clean water, protecting groundwater, and maximizing efficiencies are something we can all agree on. And by working together, across borders and boundaries, we have a higher likelihood of achieving them.” In Prior Lake, teamwork saved a combined $11 million for two communities while securing a safe, reliable water supply for the area. Learn more about this partnership on page 10.
Next, we travel to Florida’s Sanibel-Captiva Islands, where the Island Water Association’s Reverse Osmosis (RO) Treatment Plant treats and distributes 5.99 million gallons of water for the area’s residents and seasonal visitors. On page 15, read about how Island Water first became interested in RO technology in the 1980s and has continued to use the technology to optimize processes and improve energy efficiency.
On page 18, learn how one rural Alabama community’s switch to an AMI solution not only allows employees to provide better customer service but also empowers customers to make more informed decisions about their water use. Belforest Water System’s metering infrastructure was nearing the end of its warranty, so it was time for the utility’s leaders to consider the next phase for its water infrastructure. With its new AMI system in place, Belforest can now automatically track meter locations and customer water usage, customer complaints have decreased, and labor time has been significantly decreased because the utility no longer has a need for meter-reading drive-bys.
Our focus on teamwork is not just limited to North American examples, either. This month, our international coverage tackles pressure reducing valves in the United Kingdom (page 20), and managing subsidence through accurate monitoring and detection of ground movement across an Italian utility’s network (page 22). Both of these projects involve large utility companies working together for a sustainable solution to their problems — with ratepayer needs at top of mind.
While these are just a few examples of the power of partnership in the water industry, we hope you enjoy this issue and are thinking about your own ways to collaborate in the year to come. Thanks for reading! WW
