The Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA) has rewarded MACTEC Engineering and Consulting of Atlanta the contract for Georgia’s 2011 Drinking Water Inventory and Needs Survey Assessment (DWINSA).
Completed every four years to assess the 20-year infrastructure needs of public water systems eligible for Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) Program funds, DWINSA supports Georgia funding levels under the DWSRF Program. MACTEC completed the 2007 DWINSA, which included extensive data collection from 64 medium and large public water systems, including source water type, water treatment, infrastructure, distribution system data storage and capacity, among other data. Data were obtained through interviews with system staff and reviews of plans and other available documents.
"The 2007 DWINSA was of critical importance to Georgia because it will establish the basis for the state’s public water systems’ needs and the allotment of federal funds under the DWSRF Program," said MACTEC Principal Larry Neal. "We are honored to have earned the opportunity to lead this process once again."
Local water utilities must make significant investments to install, upgrade or replace equipment in order to deliver safe drinking water and protect public health. Every four years, the U.S. Environmental Protaction Agency (EPA) conducts a survey of the anticipated costs of these investments and reports the results to Congress. The results also are used to help determine the amount of funding each state receives for its DWSRF Program, which funds the types of projects identified in the survey.
The third report to Congress, released in 2009, is based on data collected from utilities in 2007. EPA found that the nation's 53,000 community water systems and 21,400 not-for-profit non-community water systems will need to invest an estimated $334.8 billion between 2007 and 2027.
Source: MACTEC
