Water Management

Itron, Inc. recently announced that the water department of the City of Bismarck, N.D. has selected Itron to help modernize its water distribution system and will manage the system using the Itron network deployed by Montana-Dakota Utilities Company (MDU).

Last week, the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) approved financial assistance for water and wastewater improvement projects. The assistance approved by TWDB will allow these communities to finance water system improvements and water treatment plant expansions.

In June, SWIC members joined PAB bill sponsors Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) to discuss their water and wastewater finance legislation, the Sustainable Water Infrastructure Investment Act of 2014, H.R. 4237 and S.2345.

Construction?s positive employment continued in July as the industry?s jobless rate declined to 7.5 percent from June?s 8.2 percent and the industry gained 22,000 jobs, the Labor Dept. has reported.

Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee released the fiscal year 2015 Chairman?s recommendation and explanatory statement for the Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.

Some states are not maximizing the use of Drinking Water State Revolving Funds, resulting in ?missed opportunities? to improve water system infrastructure, according to the U.S. EPA.

The American Society of Civil Engineers? Pipelines 2015 Conference will be held Aug. 23-26 in Baltimore, Md., with the theme of ?Recent Advances in Underground Pipeline Engineering & Construction.? Anyone looking to submit an abstract should do so by Nov. 13, 2014.

The benefits of AMI for water utilities is pretty well understood in terms of automating meter reading and advance billing systems. Yet as systems are deployed and new AMI-based data analytics applications evolve, utilities are now relying on new tools to mine this rich data source to reduce water loss and increase revenues.

As many urgent updates to the United States? infrastructure continue to be derailed by a lack of funding, the use of public-private partnerships, also called P3s or PPPs, is providing a viable path to completion for an increasing number of these projects.

Across the country, cities and towns are giving green infrastructure techniques a hard look, but evaluating their very different benefits can be daunting. While traditional gray infrastructure is proven and dependable, it is usually expensive and rarely adds beauty to the landscape.