Aqua Wins Award for Infrastructure Investment Program
The National Association of Water Companies presented its Management and Innovation Award to Aqua Pennsylvania, Inc. during the organization's 2008 Annual Session in New Mexico, according to an Oct. 24 press release.
The award recognizes the development and implementation of an infrastructure system that has benefited the company, its customers, or the water utility industry as a whole.
Aqua's winning submittal included two information management systems that help the utility prioritize its quarter-billion dollar annual infrastructure program, which has more than doubled in Pennsylvania and nearly tripled companywide in the last 10 years, to rebuild its distribution (piping) system and upgrade its water treatment systems.
AIMS (Asset Information Management System), a Web-based system that employees use as "one-stop-shopping" for information related to the company's water distribution system and a geographic information system that allows users to visually retrieve and display much of the same information using a map-based system. Both initiatives were designed to meet the company's need to develop a more formalized and efficient approach to prioritizing infrastructure projects.
Aqua America's Chair and Chief Executive Officer Nicholas DeBenedictis accepted the award for the company. "I am honored and proud to accept this award on behalf of Aqua's employees who have, once again, displayed their leadership in the water industry," said DeBenedictis. "This award recognizes Aqua's tradition of technical and engineering expertise as well as its 120-year legacy of building and maintaining strong, reliable water systems that our customers can depend on," he said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than $270 billion needs to be invested in the nation's infrastructure in the next 20 years. Aqua has spent nearly $260 million in the last 10 years to improve its infrastructure.
Aqua Pennsylvania, Inc. is the largest operating subsidiary of Aqua America, Inc. and serves approximately 1.4 million people throughout Pennsylvania.