For the 10th year in a row, GUC’s Water Treatment Plant received the prestigious North Carolina Area Wide Optimization Award (AWOP), making this the first time it has earned the NC Division of Water Resources’ “Gold Star” designation.
The Gold designation is reserved for surpassing federal and state drinking water standards for 10 or more consecutive years. Of the 157 surface water treatment plants in the state, Greenville Utilities is one of just 20 facilities honored for this accomplishment.
While this award is for 2024 and was announced in the fall of 2025, Clif Whitfield, Professional Geologist Assistant Regional Engineer, Washington Regional Public Water Supply Section, officially presented the award to GUC during the February 2026 Board of Commissioners meeting.
“To do this 10 years in a row is very impressive,” Clif said during the meeting. “You can have the premier water treatment plant in the northern hemisphere but produce terrible water. These people [WTP staff] are your best asset. They have bought into this program. They work well together. They care about what they are doing.”
The award is a state effort to enhance the performance of existing surface water treatment facilities. In 1998, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed regulations to reduce the risk of biological contamination. They then partnered with states to form the Area Wide Optimization Program (AWOP). This program introduced more stringent water quality goals and helps water systems meet those goals. North Carolina has participated in AWOP since 2000 and is one of 31 states involved in the program.
The focus of the AWOP award is turbidity removal, a key test of drinking water quality. Turbidity is a measure of cloudiness of water caused by individual particles that can interfere with disinfection and provide a medium for harmful microbial growth. Eliminating particles lessens the amount of chemicals needed to process water, which reduces byproducts in the water. While all drinking water systems must meet strict state and federal drinking water standards, AWOP honored systems meet performance goals that are significantly more stringent.
Achieving the AWOP turbidity goals is challenging for water treatment plants in the eastern part of the state due to the high number of particles typically found in the source waters in the east. Consequently, most winning plants are from the western part of the state.
“This 10-year achievement marks a big goal that our staff has worked hard on and is one of many examples of WTP employees taking pride in their jobs to provide our customers with quality drinking water,” said WTP Facility Manager Julius Patrick. “Meeting AWOP goals is a joint effort between operations, maintenance, and lab staff that couldn’t happen without everyone doing an outstanding job every day.”
Congratulations to our Water Treatment Plant on this outstanding achievement!
