The Prince William County Service Authority?s (Va.) Geographic Information System (GIS) department playsa tremendous role in improving availability of utility-wide information to those who need access to it. That role will increase in the next few years thanks to a recent move to make the Service Authority more GIS-centric.

With the limited resources we do have to sustain our infrastructure, we tend to focus on what we can see: roads, bridges, schools and even our government facilities such as parks, offices, etc. We are more likely to neglect what we do not see, such as underground water and sewer infrastructure.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced $860,000 to help 14 communities expand their use of green infrastructure to reduce water pollution and boost resilience to the impacts of climate change.

This month, an estimated 11,000 water professionals will convene in Boston, Mass., for the American Water Works Association?s (AWWA) Annual Conference & Exposition (ACE14). Attending the association?s annual conference is nothing new for people in the water industry. Perhaps for some, attending each year has turned into somewhat of a formality.

In 2002, the worst drought in 300 years dehydrated the State of Colorado, leaving it a crispy brown tinderbox.Denver Water scrambled to adapt. The northern side of Denver?s collection system only has about a fourth of the water that?s available on the southern end of the system. This already-smaller north side was dangerously close to running dry, forcing operators to jury-rig a distribution system that would deliver water from the south side to the parched north.

The Capacity Optimization Fee is designed to optimize the wastewater plant?s capacity to serve the community by assessing customers for discharge capacity they are permitted for but may not be using. Some customers may wish to avoid paying the COFee by reducing the permitted capacity above 15 percent of the highest usage in the past 12 months.

As St. Louis has grown, so has the Missouri River Wastewater Treatment Plant, one of seven treatment plants in the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD). Yet, over two decades, the district has implemented each upgrade, capacity increase and structural addition without taking the plant offline for significant periods of time.

The City of Newark, Ohio recently sought relief from excessive electric bills through significant process upgrades. The Licking River Wastewater Treatment Plant on the east side of the city completed installation of new, highly efficient bubble diffusers in its aeration basins, WAS tanks and a post-aeration tank.

For our June Q&A, UIM sat down with Jesse Berst, founder and chairman of the Smart Cities Council to get a fresh perspective on how cities are using “smart” technology. Berst was one of the pioneering thought leaders and the chief analyst of SmartGridNews.com, the internet?s oldest, largest and highest-ranked smart grid site.

The Utah State University (USU) Buried Structures Laboratory has published a comprehensive study on PVC pipe excavations, testing and life cycle analysis. USU, located in Logan, Utah, is also home to the Utah Water Research Laboratory and has significantly contributed to water and wastewater research internationally for more than 50 years.