WTP staff receive the award from AWWA Chair Heather Collins (far left) during the annual convention in Denver.
Protecting public health is the number one goal of our Water Treatment Plant (WTP) staff and it shows in each year’s Water Quality Reports. Not only do they consistently meet state and federal drinking water standards - they exceed them. Another way their dedication shows is through the awards they receive year after year. This year, WTP staff earned one of the most prestigious awards in the industry – the “Five Year National Directors Award” from the Partnership for Safe Water (PSW).
PSW is an alliance of seven national organizations: American Water Works Association, Environmental Protection Agency, Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, National Association of Water Companies, Water Research Foundation, and WateReuse.
The Partnership’s goal is to guide water suppliers towards improving water quality by optimizing their system operations beyond regulation. Their awards program is similar in nature to the stringent guidelines for a state award that our WTP has received over the past nine years (North Carolina Area Wide Optimization Award, or AWOP) but goes a few steps further with a four-phase approach and a peer review, with Phase IV being the highest level of achievement.
A big focus of both PSW’s and AWOP’s awards programs is turbidity removal, a key test of drinking water quality. Turbidity is a measure of water cloudiness caused by individual particles that can interfere with disinfection and provide a medium for microbial growth. Eliminating particles lessens the amount of chemicals needed to treat water, which reduces byproducts in the water. The Tar River has high turbidity because its water comes from tributaries that run through swamps, making it especially difficult for water treatment plants in the eastern part of the state to achieve PSW’s and AWOP’s strict turbidity goals.
Eight Years in the Making
GUC’s WTP staff received the “First Year Directors Award, Phase III” in 2020 after three years of peer reviews, self-assessments, and a comprehensive 140-page evaluation that included plant operations and performance, identification of performance limiting factors, and the development of action plans to achieve optimization.
Staff then spent the last five years submitting annual water quality data plus an Optimization Narrative that showcases additional efforts like safety initiatives, annual staff meetings where overall optimization and goals are discussed, and much more.
“I’m really proud of our team,” said Julius Patrick, WTP Facility Manager. “This is a dedicated group effort. Only six other utilities in North Carolina have ever achieved the Directors Award recognition, which goes to show the team’s ongoing commitment to protecting public health.”
Our WTP remains eligible to receive this recognition every five years by continuing to provide the required annal reports to the Partnership.
Congratulations to our Water Treatment Plant staff for working hard to provide award-winning drinking water for our customers!
