American Water earned a Project Merit award in the 2010 Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) Business Achievement Awards. American Water was recognized for designing, building and operating the Fillmore Water Recycling Plant in California. The 2010 EBJ awards will be presented in a ceremony at the ninth annual Environmental Industry Summit in Coronado, Calif., on March 9.
“We are honored to receive this important recognition from the Environmental Business Journal for our work with the city of Fillmore in developing this state-of-the-art water recycling program,” said Sharon Cameron, president of American Water Enterprises, the non-regulated products and services division of American Water. “This project serves as a successful model for public-private partnerships, as well as the ecological and economic benefits that water reuse programs offer communities.”
In response to a consent degree order to dramatically improve the quality of treated wastewater discharges to the Santa Clara River, the city of Fillmore elected to contract with American Water to build a new, state-of-the-art water recycling plant that would end the practice of river discharges and enable development of a full-scale water reuse system to benefit many areas of the town. The result is a facility that meets the stringent requirements of federal and state regulations as a zero-discharge facility and a water-recycling program for irrigation and groundwater recharge.
The plant’s current irrigation system provides 200,000 gal per day to two public schools, the Two Rivers Park, and other green areas in Fillmore. About 800,000 gal per day is discharged to percolation ponds and an underground effluent disposal system that provides groundwater recharge. The irrigation system has reduced the use of potable water sufficiently enough to allow the city to postpone drilling a new well and has helped preserve its limited supply of quality potable water.
This is the third time in as many years that American Water has been recognized by the EBJ awards. The company was honored with 2008 and 2009 Project Merit awards for developing water recycling systems at the Solaire and Visionaire high-rise residences in New York City, respectively.
Source: American Water
